


Glacial

by breather



Category: Beelzebub (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Eventual!BAMF!Furuichi, Friendship, Furuichi!WHUMP, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I think it's funny anyway, MINOR crossover with Elder Scrolls, No Romance, basically everyone - Freeform, everyone's worried about their general, lots of characters, more than usual anyway, some language, some violence, sometimes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-27
Updated: 2014-12-13
Packaged: 2018-01-17 05:31:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 36,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1375621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/breather/pseuds/breather
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Furuichi's been having trouble sleeping since he got his soul back, and his hands have never felt so cold.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Instigation

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: If you recognize any names, terms, or concepts, it's because they're not mine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Beelzebub canon has never been very exact when it comes to timelines, so judging by the clothes they wear and my own vague estimation, this story takes place about a month after the St Sent Christmas Battle, a week after the fight with Takamiya, and about a couple weeks before the trip to LA. Probably not accurate, but there you go.
> 
> Story Warnings: Some violence and strong language. Mentions of deceased OCs.
> 
> Disclaimer: If you recognize any names, terms, or concepts it's because they don't belong to me.

_Arrows and steel and little bits of flesh, falling like rain. Hot blood slicking icy mountain passes. No sure footing, even for him, him and his people, people falling and crying and never standing up._

_It’s over, it’s over, but why is it so cold? He’s never been cold before, but now he’s numb, no feeling but cold. How odd. Not in a good way. Maybe? OH-_

_And now he’s falling, no sure footing after all, NO SURE FOOTING, slip and slide down the mountain, just like he and Sybreon used to do when they were small. It’s not fun now, though, not without Sybreon, where’s Sybreon, where, where? Just saw him…yesterday maybe? Last night? THERE!_

_Behind the rock, the great big rock, STOP HIDING HIM! There was Sybreon, he’d recognize that armor anywhere, had to get him and GET OUT because it was all all all over now. Grab his shoulder, turn him around, oh thank Trinimac, thought he’d lost him, dear friend, closest companion, and oh GODS-_

_Where was his **face?** Just blood and bone and bits of hanging skin._

_…Sybreon? please, don’t go…need you, need you, whywhyWHY-_

_AVENGE HIM, PRINCE! But the Prince can’t._

_He’s dead too._

 

 

Furuichi retched into the toilet. This was the eighth time in as many days he’d been awoken by some terrible, bloody nightmare, and each time, fear of the visions had kept him going back to sleep. He’d attempted to stave off sleep for the night, if it meant not having to _see_ anymore, but his body had apparently disagreed; he’d fallen asleep a few hours past midnight.

People at school were starting to take notice, too. The dark bags beneath his eyes and the sallow, waxy skin of his face had prompted the Red Tails to start calling him Creepichi again, despite their promise a few weeks ago to let up on the teasing. Himekawa had commented yesterday that his obvious sickness was divine retribution for having disrespected his upperclassmen, when Furuichi couldn’t be bothered to raise his head from his desk the whole day, not even to admire the Red Tails when they walked by.

He rinsed his mouth out and splashed warm water in his face, examining his reflection in the mirror. _Jesus, I really look like shit_ , he thought dispassionately. He took a deep breath and ran a shaky hand back through his hair, only to let out a pained hiss when his palm grazed the shell of his ear.

“What the hell…?” he muttered, leaning closer to the glass to get a better look. He brushed his hair away from his ear and frowned in consternation. The shell was red and swollen and faintly radiated heat; it looked infected, but there was no wound anywhere. The other ear was the same. He poked a bit at the inflammation, but could see no obvious cause. There would be no answers to this new ailment tonight.

“Maybe I should see a doctor about all this crap,” he murmured. He huffed a bit then pushed away from the sink, turning to head back to his room, already resigned to another sleepless night.

He settled onto his bed and leaned back against the wall to watch out the window, wrapped tightly in his blankets and sheets. It was just so damn _cold_ lately, despite the encroachment of spring. Furuichi glanced down at his white-knuckled hands, clenched tight to keep from shivering, and examined their purple-blue nail beds. _It’s definitely not just my imagination, if I can see the effect of the cold_ , he thought groggily. He put in his mp3 player and settled back to watch for the sunrise.

* * *

He left early for school that morning, long before Oga would have passed by on his own way. The second day after his nightmares had started – two days after he’d _lost his soul_ and _died_ – Oga had started questioning him in an awkwardly roundabout way about his appearance. He couldn’t tell him about the nightmares – it was bad enough to be the absolute weakest in a school of delinquents and to have everyone know he was afraid of fights, but to start having bad dreams about blood and battle too, like some little kid? There was no way whatever pride he had left would allow him to admit some kind of _trauma_. He just told Oga that he probably hadn’t quite recovered yet, and that maybe he’d caught something while his immune system was down, too. Oga had bought it the first few days, but had started looking suspicious after Furuichi had only gotten worse. He hated lying to his friend, so he had decided to avoid him as long as possible instead.

He trudged his way wearily down the streets, ignoring the strange looks he was receiving for the heavy winter coat, gloves, scarf, and hat he’d covered himself with. Even still, he couldn’t quite suppress his shivers. The brand-new, heavily graffitied school buildings came into view, and seeing it Furuichi realized he just…couldn’t. It was just too cold, and he was just too tired to bother with class and classmates today. But he couldn’t go home either, not after assuring his mother that he was fine. He shuffled into the nearest doorway, hoping to at least get out of the open and into the warmer buildings. By luck, he happened across the one person who could tell him the one place he wanted to be right now.

“Hey, Toujou!” Furuichi called, spotting the large teen walking down the hall beside Aizawa and Jinno. It seemed today was one of the rare days he wasn’t working. The seniors stopped and turned to regard him.

“Eh, Furuichi? You… You look like shit,” Toujou said, frowning a bit, crossing his arms and looking him up and down.

“Yeah, thanks,” he deadpanned. “Look, you built the school, right? Where’s the boiler room?” Toujou cocked his head and his frown deepened into one of confusion, but he obligingly pointed Furuichi to the basement of building two. Furuichi ducked into a side hallway and made his escape before Toujou could question him further.

On his way there, he skillfully avoided any of the Saints crew, not wanting to deal with their awkward, half-curious, half-concerned questions. _Heh, Furu-nin is born,_ he snickered to himself as he rolled past a room Hanazawa’s excited chatter was echoing from, and slipped into the shadowed space between a pair of vending machines to evade Kanzaki and Shiroyama. A few fodder thugs had noticed him duck in, but he unabashedly took advantage of his position as Oga’s best friend to keep them quiet – _Keep your traps shut or the Child-Rearing Badass will shut them for you!_

Furuichi immediately noticed the difference as he found the stairwell down to the boiler room – just opening the door let out a burst of warm air. He sighed in relief and rushed down excitedly. Three huge metal boilers and an intricate series of steaming pipes filled the dark room, the heat of it all keeping other thugs from invading. Furuichi grabbed a couple of dirty leftover construction tarps from the corner and stuffed them in between two of the boilers, settling himself in the fabric. _God, it’s so nice in here…_ he thought sleepily. Within minutes, the chill had receded from his torso and limbs, and a few more minutes had drained his fingertips and toes of their numbness. He let his head fall against the metal beside him, and was too comfortable and lethargic and _relieved_ to notice anything but the fact that he wasn’t cold anymore.

He was understandably shocked when he was jolted from his short doze by large hands clamping onto his shoulders and forcefully dragging him out of his nest. He yelped and flailed, startled, a kick and two punches connecting with the other body but having no effect.

“What the hell, Furuichi! Didn’t you even feel it?” Natsume said, his voice uncharacteristically raised. Furuichi hadn’t even noticed the door opening.

“Natsume, what…?”

“Your face, idiot! It was pressed against the boiler! Shit, you’re all burned.” The tall senior took his chin in a firm grip and tilted his face to the side, trying to better survey the damage in the dim lighting of the basement room. Furuichi could only feel vague warmth emanating from his cheek, although his fingertips were already starting to numb from cold again.

“No, no! Stop, I’m fine, lemme go! It was so warm there,” Furuichi cried, pushing against the other man’s chest and pulling at his wrists, but having no success at removing his hands.

“Yeah, it was really fucking warm alright! Jesus, look at this, you’ve got _blisters_ , Furuichi. You seriously didn’t even notice?”

“No, you’re seriously overreacting right now! I’m sure it’s not that bad,” he protested, still struggling to free himself from Natsume’s iron grip. The senior snorted.

“Right, whatever. C’mon, let’s go to the nurse,” he said, switching his grip to Furuichi’s wrist and dragging him bodily up the stairs. He gave a bit of token resistance but ultimately gave up. He knew he was weaker than even those fodder he had threatened earlier; there was no way he could break away from someone like Natsume.

“Hey, what are you doing!” Furuichi exclaimed, seeing the other pull out his phone.

“Calling Oga. Oi oi oi, hands off, no arguing! I’m not gonna be the one who didn’t tell our leader his boy got hurt,” he said, dialing the number one-handed while holding the phone above his head, out of Furuichi’s shorter reach. He was unprepared for Furuichi’s body slam, however. The phone clattered to the ground and Natsume grabbed him by the shoulders again, spinning him around and slamming him into the wall. “Eh? Just what do you think you’re doing, freshman?” he said lightly. There was nothing light or friendly about the pissed off look on his face, though.

“Don’t tell Oga. It’s not his business, and it’s _really_ not yours,” Furuichi said firmly. He was really just hoping he could annoy Natsume back into his normal detached behavior. He was sure the senior was only acting like this because he was amused by or interested in something; Furuichi had never seen him with any other kind of motivation, let alone any kind of _concern_.

“Oi, what’s going on? Natsume?” _Toujou to the rescue again!_ Furuichi thought gleefully, watching the redhead stride down the hallway. Natsume’s expression cleared and he stepped back, bending down to pick up his phone before turning to speak to Toujou.

“I’m trying to take him to the nurse, but he’s being a bit stubborn,” he laughed nonchalantly. Toujou cocked his head and opened his mouth to ask more, but Natsume just pointed to Furuichi’s cheek. Toujou’s open mouth dropped further and his eyes widened. Furuichi glanced away and would have blushed, but heat was already gathered in his cheeks. Seriously, it wasn’t _that_ bad, was it? He would have noticed if he was hurt…right?

“I found him sleeping against a boiler,” Natsume continued, rather less jovially. “Think you could let Oga know?” he asked, grabbing Furuichi’s wrist again and setting off without waiting for Toujou’s assenting nod. He didn't stop again until they reached the nurse. Furuichi couldn’t see his face from where he was being dragged along behind, but he figured the senior must have been exercising his rarely-used evil eye to part the sea of thugs filling the hallways; they met with zero resistance on the way.

“Maybe you should sit,” Natsume called to him cheerfully as they bustled into the nurse’s office, the senior finally releasing Furuichi’s wrist and moving over to the medicine cabinets.

Despite the wide, close-eyed smile and chirpy tone, there was no mistaking the order in Natsume’s voice. Furuichi sat. The older man poked around the shelves and had just pulled out a few sheets of gauze and some kind of salve when Oga burst into the room, Toujou at his heels.

“What the fuck, Furuichi?” Oga growled. Furuichi took egregious advantage of Natsume kneeling in front of him and applying the salve to hide his face from Oga.

“Nothing. I was just cold, that’s all,” he muttered stiffly. And on that note, there were several unused blankets scattered across the bed. He gathered them up and wrapped them tightly around his shoulders, busying himself to distract from the unwelcome conversation.

“Doesn’t explain why you were stupid enough to fall asleep there.” Oga wasn’t letting up, not that Furuichi really expected him to. Stubborn bastard.

“I didn’t mean to, it was an accident,” he sighed. He really wished Toujou and Natsume weren’t here, it made everything doubly embarrassing. Oga didn’t speak for a moment, waiting until Natsume had finished and moved away from Furuichi to continue.

“Oi, idiot. You should sleep more,” Oga said gruffly. Furuichi shook his head, still not meeting his friend’s gaze. Oga frowned and shoved his face in front of Furuichi’s. “Sleep, or I’ll make you, dumbass!”

“Goddamnit, Oga, just fuck off, okay? I’m fine! _Jesus_ ,” he shouted, pushing Oga back with a hand to the face.

“You’re obviously not fine, moron! Look at you, you look like you’re about to fall over dead!”

“Again, you mean?” Furuichi sneered nastily, gratified when Oga dropped his eyes and Baby Beel let out a small whimper. In the back, Toujou shifted uncomfortably and Natsume let out a playful “Ooooh~”

“Is that what this’ about? You’re fucked up from what Lucifer did?” Oga asked, glancing back up at him. Furuichi sighed and hugged himself a bit tighter.

“I dunno, man… It’s just, other stuff started happening after that fight.”

“Then the others might know about it,” Oga said decisively. “You wait here, I’ll go find them. C’mon Toujou. You stay,” he said, directing the last part at Natsume. The senior nodded with a guileless smile and stepped further into the room. Furuichi glanced up at him.

“How’d you even find me down there?” he asked. The taller man shrugged a bit.

“I overheard you ask Toujou where the boiler room was and got curious. I thought you might be doing something fun. But that was seriously no fun at all,” Natsume finished lightly, the pout in his voice at odds with the uncharacteristically firm gaze he directed at Furuichi.

“I was just cold. You guys are making a bigger deal out of this than it is,” he muttered. The other man just regarded him coolly, head cocked to the side. He pursed his mouth and tapped a long finger against his lips faux-contemplatively.

“No, I think we waited too long to bring it up as it is.”


	2. Intervention

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Story Warnings: Some violence and strong language. Mentions of deceased OCs.
> 
> Disclaimer: If you recognize any names, terms, or concepts it's because they don't belong to me.

When Oga returned, he had both Takamiya and Akahoshi in tow. The former had reverted to his original dreary appearance, and seemed disgruntled to have been summoned. Akahoshi appeared mildly concerned and curious, and a looming Toujou brought up the rear and then planted himself firmly in the doorway, blocking access. Natsume joined him, leaning back against the doorframe. As soon as they stepped into the office, Oga addressed them unceremoniously, tone brusque and firm.

“What’re the side affects to having your soul removed and split?”

The trio of freshmen turned to look at Furuichi, and it grated on him how they took in his burned face, his dark, bloodshot eyes, and his shivering form, bundled in heavy winter gear and all the sheets and blankets from the nurse’s office.

“I- I don’t know. Mammon said there wouldn’t be any side effects. Maybe. Probably,” Akahoshi grimaced at the end.

“No one’s ever survived when Lucifer’s split their souls before,” Takamiya added unconcernedly.

“Well, there’s obviously some fucking side effects! Just look at him! Bring out your fucking demons and ask already,” Oga growled. Baby Beel shook his tiny, round fist and gave an angry screech from over his shoulder 

“Stop talking about me like I’m not here,” Furuichi stuttered through chattering teeth. He was ignored in favor of Mammon, whom Akahoshi had just called up with a burst of flame.

“I did everything right, his soul’s all fixed. I’m still waiting for my full payment, by the way,” the bizarre looking demon said, shooting an expressionless glare at Akahoshi. “If there’s something wrong, there must have been something wrong with his soul itself. You, boy! What are your symptoms?”

Furuichi frowned. He really didn’t want to tell them about the nightmares. It was bad enough they could see this weird cold thing that was happening to him. He looked up at Oga and was met by serious, determined eyes. _Shit_ , he thought. _There’s no getting away from eyes like that._ Those eyes said that Oga would not stop until he accomplished his goal, and right now, that goal was figuring out what was wrong with Furuichi. He sighed resignedly.

“Besides that I’m freezing like this? It’s- I can’t sleep. Weird dreams,” he admitted quietly, staring down at the floor.

“Nightmares of the fight?” Akahoshi asked neutrally. Furuichi shook his head.

“No, it’s… I mean, yeah, sometimes, but mostly– I don’t even know how to describe them. It’s in weird places, with weird people, and weird situations, and- and it’s like I’m not even _me_ ,” he finished a little helplessly.

“Ah, it’s that,” Mammon said, pounding a fist into an open palm.

“Right, that,” Hilda agreed from where she had hopped up into the third-storey windowsill.

“I see, it’s that!” Alaindelon’s head popped out from underneath the bed, which shifted awkwardly to accommodate his sudden mass beneath it. He was nodding quite seriously. Toujou and Natsume eyed the demon nervously, although if asked, they couldn’t quite tell why.

“That?” Furuichi asked, too accustomed to surprise demon appearances by now to be overly startled.

“Precisely that,” Mammon said again, crossing his arms and nodding wisely. _What the fuck is that?!_ Inner Furuichi screeched. Outer Furuichi was about to vocalize the question, but was beaten to the punch by Oga.

“Oi, stop being stupid and tell us already!”

“Your soul was scrambled up when it was split. Interference like that sometimes triggers memories of a past life. That’s it, you’re fine,” Mammon said breezily, flapping a hand cavalierly. “I expect compensation for the answer, by the way.”

“What about the cold?” Furuichi asked. The demon shrugged.

“It’s just in your head. Maybe you died somewhere cold.”

“It’s not in my fucking head! Look, you can see my breath, and my nails are all blue! I’m seriously freezing here, you shitty demon miser!” he snarled.

“Look, kid, if your body temperature was genuinely below normal, you would be more sensitive to heat than normal. Touching a boiler _normally_ would be extremely painful. For someone who’s already ‘freezing,’ it would have been enough to send you into shock, but you barely even felt it.”

“Yeah, because I’m _numb_! Oh, for the love of…” Furuichi exclaimed, rising up out of his pile and slapping a hand against Mammon’s bare arm. The demon gasped at the feeling of icicles scraping across his skin and jumped. He hummed a bit.

“Well. I don’t know. Bye.” He disappeared in a small burst of flame, leaving Furuichi to gape incredulously. Akahoshi winced apologetically.

“I don’t know why you are experiencing physical effects. Perhaps it’s because you’re human,” Hilda shrugged, “but this phenomenon is not unheard of in the demon world. Some demons even intentionally cause themselves soul injuries to obtain the wisdom of a previous life.”

“How lucky you are, Furuichi-dono!” Alaindelon exclaimed with starry eyes.

“How do we make it stop?” Furuichi asked determinedly. He paused when he took in the surprised expressions on the demons’ faces.

“Why would you want to make it stop?” Hilda asked incredulously, her visible eye wide. “This is a powerful gift!”

Furuichi frowned. “It’s nothing I want to see. Watching people die every night isn’t gonna make me wiser, it just makes me sick to my stomach,” he said stiffly.

“Wait, what do you mean you see people die? You only said they were _weird_ dreams,” Oga said forcefully, shoving closer to Furuichi again.

“Well, some of them are sort of mundane, I guess… I mean, they’re all pretty abstract, and sometimes I kind of recall stuff like sitting around a campfire, or working out strategies, or sharpening a blade. Mostly, though, it’s been fighting these- these _horrible_ battles, or walking around the aftermath of them. So, yeah. I see a lot of people die,” he finished softly. 

Hilda leaned forward to rest her chin on her palm, eyeing him contemplatively. “Then you were a military officer in a past life? This is a good thing. The master can only benefit from having a slave with military expertise. Your value is increasing, Furuichi.”

He stared at her blankly for a long moment, dumbfounded. “You… you think it’s a good thing that I saw my best friend’s face get ripped off last night?” he asked quietly, more to himself than to the demoness. _I don’t need to put up with this_ , he thought vitriolically.

Beautiful though she may be, Hilda was completely lacking anything similar to empathy when it came to him, and while he had approximately zero desire for pity, he also had no wish to deal with her callousness. He could handle it later, when he wasn’t already humiliated by having to talk about his nightmares, but not now.

He didn’t want to be here anymore, he just wanted to go home and sleep and forget everything, but none of that was possible, not with his nightmares and not with his mother’s concern. He started fiddling with the sheets, trying to untangle himself to leave and go… Somewhere. Anywhere that wasn’t here, it didn’t matter. A calloused hand covering his wrists stopped him.

Furuichi looked up to see Oga standing over him, face blank, but with intense eyes. He looked over his friend’s shoulder to see Toujou herding everyone else out of the room. The tall senior turned to offer them a brief nod over his broad shoulder before slamming the door on Natsume’s pout and Alaindelon’s worried, tearful eyes.

“Beel needs a nap, so I’m gonna stay here for a while. You should stay too,” Oga said in the sudden silence, awkwardly rubbing at the back of his head. “It’s fine if everyone’s gone, right?”

Furuichi stared up at his best friend. Yeah, he’d be safe here. He could trust Oga to wake him up when he had another nightmare, the same way he’d always trusted in Oga to come through for him. The thick knot of scar tissue on his back and chest right over his heart seemed to ache a little less when Oga was around.

Furuichi wondered vaguely what it had been like for Oga to see Lucifer rip out his soul. He probably would have just puked if their situations had been reversed, he thought as he shoved at his friend’s shoulder for stealing one of his blankets for Beel. He would have tried to save him, of course, after gathering himself, but it would have been entirely hopeless. He’d barely been able to scratch Takamiya, even with the assistance of several demons.

Which wasn’t surprising, really; he never been good at fighting, and had never wanted to be, until recently. His advantage had always been his intelligence and tactical mind, but looking back at the past few months, at the way Himekawa had pulled through for them in amazing ways with money and technology and brilliant strategies… Furuichi couldn’t really fathom why anyone was even pretending that he was Ishiyama’s General, because he sure as hell didn’t feel like it.

“Oi!” Oga called, splaying his hand across Furuichi’s face and pushing his head flat against the pillow. “Stop thinking and get that stupid look off your face. Go to sleep." 

“Yeah,” he said, offering a tired grin and batting away Oga’s arm. He knew objectively that he was feeling so awful about himself right now because of exhaustion, and he seriously hoped he felt better after a nap – it wasn’t like him to be so morose. He settled back into bed and pulled the nest of blankets more tightly around himself. The last thing he saw before he closed his eyes was Oga seated on the foot of the bed, reclining against the wall with Beel curled up to his chest, his face arranged in its typical relaxed scowl. _Heh, Child-Rearing Badass indeed_.

 

_Thousands of faces stare up at him, pale and eager, proud and fierce. His heart swells, bursting, these people, HIS people, trusting and fervent and he will lead them to victory. They can do this, they can WIN, they can bury those filthy, pig-fucking savages and home will be home again and there will be peace._

_Raise the arm, raise the spear, both strong, both flexible, both glinting with metal in the morning sun. The army meets his war cry with a fierce cacophony, echoes across the mountain, rides the wind, sharp and clear as their ice, reaches the enemy ears and makes them shiver. Their combined armor and blades shine more brightly than the snow around them._

_But then anything would shine more brightly than red and brown and grey – is it really snow when it’s mostly blood and mud and crumpled bodies?_

_Thousands of faces stare up at him from the ground, but there’s no pride in their eyes now. There’s nothing._

_And now there’s nothing in his eyes, either. Because there’s nothing in his chest. Well, nothing that’s his, anyway. Just a hand, a pretty lily-white hand, fine-boned and delicate and shattering his crushed ribs further and making him gasp and gurgle and BLEED–_

 

Firm hands shaking his shoulders jolted Furuichi into awareness. He sat up quickly, shaking and sweating with fear and revulsion, and forced his way out of the nest of blankets, pushing past Oga, and diving face-first into the nurse’s sink to vomit. He was distantly aware of Oga shifting uncomfortably behind him and Baby Beel babbling quietly. When he was finished, he sank to the ground and leaned back against the counter, barely glancing over when his friend settled beside him.

“Are they always like that?” Oga muttered, pulling his son off his shoulder and into his lap to poke at baby-fat cheeks.

Furuichi made a vague noise of agreement. “Thanks for waking me. How long was I out?”

“Couple hours,” Oga grunted. “You need more than that.”

“Heh, you’re telling me,” he sighed despondently. “What I really need is to have never been kidnapped.”

“…That was Glasses’ fault, wasn’t it.” 

Furuichi shrugged. “I mean, I guess, but I’m sure he didn’t know how far Takamiya was willing to go. And it was a great plan, it just kinda sucks that I was collateral damage.”

Oga didn’t say anything, just kept poking distractedly at Beel’s cheeks. The baby was starting to get fussy, but Oga did not seem to notice. Furuichi watched him a moment longer, unnerved by the silence and by the way Oga’s eyes seemed a bit darker, before heaving himself up.

“C’mon, let’s have lunch. I’m hungry. _Oga_ ,” he repeated when his friend made no move to stand. The other man finally glanced up and settled Beel on his shoulder, rising to stalk out of the nurse’s office. 

Unfortunately, they had chosen precisely the wrong moment to leave to room. As soon as they stepped out, they walked right into the middle of a melee fight involving no less than twelve delinquents, all apparently fighting for the right to call the hallway their territory.

Oga had no problems navigating the horde, of course, batting flying thugs away like insects, clearing the path for Furuichi to follow. From his position up ahead, however, he was unable to see the metal pipe a thug threw at one of his opponents, which flew off course when it ricocheted comically off another punk’s skull and headed straight at Furuichi.

Furuichi’s gaze narrowed to a laser focus, his eyes trained on a spot three quarters of the way down the pipe. He followed that spot as it spun through the air, anticipating the trajectory and stretching to catch it right before his nose with a harsh smack of flesh on metal and a sudden sting that he had no time to contemplate. Without a second’s pause, he brought the pipe down to his side and parallel to the floor, before pushing off the ground with both feet and twisting at the hips to smack a thug across the belly, the force of the hit sending him crashing into another.

Furuichi’s momentum carried him through to the other side of the hallway, knocking another thug to the ground with a shoulder and elbow, then bringing the pipe up to jam the end of it into someone’s solar plexus. With his feet planted firmly once more, he put all the force of his body’s alignment into pushing the other up off the ground and back over Furuichi’s shoulder.

That was the intention, anyway. Halfway to heaving the thug all the way across his back, Furuichi heard a sickening pop just before an incredible pain in the shoulder of his leading arm had him dropping pipe and thug and falling to his knees. 

“ _Fuck_ ,” he hissed, grasping at his shoulder as Oga became a sudden flurry of violent activity, planting each delinquent shoulder deep in the walls and ceiling. Less than a minute later, Oga was kneeling beside him, carefully pulling his hand away to check the injured shoulder.

“Furuichi, what the fuck was that? You weren’t even using the demon tissues!”

“I dunno. Just- It was just automatic. Fuck, stop touching!” he yelped as Oga jostled the joint too roughly as he pulled off the thick layer of Furuichi’s winter coat.

“Looks dislocated. Hold on, this’ll hurt,” the teen muttered, taking the arm and slowly rotating it, bracing with one hand and pulling steadily with the other, until the limb suddenly popped back into place. Furuichi couldn’t quite bite down on an exclamation of pain.

“Sit here a sec, I’ll get ice,” Oga said, darting quickly back into the nurse’s office to grab a bag of ice. He affixed the pack to the top of Furuichi’s shoulder with a length of bandages, then used his own black jacket as a sling to support the sore joint.

“What did you mean ‘automatic,’” Oga said, surveying his handiwork with an accomplished eye.

“It was weird,” Furuichi responded, testing the knot the sleeves of the makeshift sling made behind his neck. “Like, I saw the pipe flying, and felt like I’ve seen it a thousand times, and then I just knew what to do. Heh, guess I just wasn’t strong enough to follow through,” he finished self-deprecatingly.

“Your body’s not used to moving like that, not without a demon to help. S’why your shoulder got dislocated,” Oga affirmed. He paused a bit before continuing. “…Think it had something to do with those dreams?”

Furuichi had already come to the same conclusion. “Mm. I think I use a spear when I fight in those memory nightmares, sometimes. Guess that’s that shitty ‘wisdom of a past life’ Hilda was talking about.”

“How the fuck is it wise if you just hurt yourself, eh?” Oga barked, poking harshly at Furuichi’s good shoulder.

He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, that’s why I asked how to make it stop.”

“I’ll ask Hilda again later,” Oga promised as he settled against the wall beside Furuichi. The paler teen let his head fall back with a light _thunk_ against the crumbling plaster.

“Jesus, what a shitty day,” Furuichi said with a laugh that edged on hysterical, bringing his good hand up to poke at the bandage covering the burn on his cheek. He still felt no pain from that particular injury, the cold numbing the damaging heat transfer. Actually, he mused, it was probably good for his shoulder that he was so cold. It would keep the swelling down.

Oga said nothing, but tilted his body more towards his Furuichi so that their shoulders brushed with each breath. They sat quietly for a long moment, surveying the field of planted thugs. One of them looked particularly artful, with his legs splayed at an elegant angle, colorful socks on display, and pants dusted with an intricate, abstract pattern of mortar. He said as much to Oga.

“Heh, what can I say?” the badass said modestly.

 

The rest of the day passed slowly and quietly, thankfully. Exhaustion and pain dragged at Furuichi’s steps, but Oga didn't seem to mind the slower pace. No one bothered them for the rest of the day, not even any fools from other temporary schools who had gotten it into their heads to challenge Oga. A few times Furuichi saw someone make to step forward into their path, but each time a hand shot out and snagged the thug by the collar, dragging him into some dark side hallway like a low budget horror film. Once he was even sure he saw chains like Nene’s burst from a classroom, tangle around the unlucky delinquent, and yank him into the shadowy doorway. Furuichi and Oga ignored the screams as par course for Ishiyama High.

When the final bell rang, Oga waved him off to Kanzaki and Co.’s company, saying he had something to take care of and ordering the three seniors to escort him home, much to his humiliation. Kanzaki growled something about uppity freshman but didn’t object as he led them through the streets in the direction of Furuichi’s house. The freshman did not want to know how they knew where he lived.

On the walk, Kanzaki and Shiroyama ignored him for the most part, while Natsume kept eyeing him with the same sort of intent curiosity a cat offers a caged bird. Furuichi had rarely been so eager to see his house. He accepted Kanzaki’s parting nod and Shiroyama’s grunt of ‘Later,’ thanking them for the escort.

He couldn’t help the shiver that had nothing to due with cold when Natsume grinned brightly, patted him on his uninjured shoulder, and told him to take better care of himself, or he’d regret it.


	3. Permafrost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Story Warnings: Some violence and strong language. Mentions of deceased OCs.
> 
> Disclaimer: If you recognize any names, terms, or concepts it's because they don't belong to me.

Furuichi’s mother had been understandably horrified when the son she was already concerned for came home from school one day with a burned face and dislocated shoulder, especially after the last couple of times he’d been laid up in bed with serious injuries in the past school year. It had taken some serious begging to keep her from immediately withdrawing him from Ishiyama.

She had insisted on a full inspection by a doctor, however, which ended up being a pointless visit. He had been unable to explain Furuichi’s icy skin and normal body temperature, not that Furuichi expected him to, and had nothing to offer his burned cheek and aching shoulder except compliments to whomever had tended to him. And painkillers.

There was no progress on the nightmare front, either. Neither Hilda nor Alaindelon had any idea how to stop the integration of Furuichi’s apparent past life. Not even Dr. Forcas, whom they’d been able to contact via Lamia, knew how to stop the memories from coming, although he had suggested that perhaps the energy exchange from a demon contract could mitigate the damage to his body and balance the fluctuating energies that came from his having his soul damaged. Furuichi had been less than receptive when Oga brought it up the next day.

Furuichi scoffed as he followed along beside Oga on the way to school. “Yeah, right, cuz there’s a Demon Depot just down the road from my house, right next to Fiend Contract Suppliers, Inc. Where exactly do you guys expect me to get a demon from, huh?” Okay so he was just a little cranky. But to his credit, Oga just ignored his uncalled for sass.

“You’ve still got those tissues from the Demon Lord, right? Just use those, moron.”

“Idiot! I can’t go around with those shitty tissues stuffed up my nose all the time! That’ll kill me!”

“So call one up and make a _proper_ contract with them, then,” Oga said, rolling his eyes and giving Furuichi a look that said he was dumber than a rock.

Furuichi snorted. “Yeah, right.”

“Exactly. Seriously, why don’t you?”

Furuichi stared at him disbelievingly. “You seriously think any of them would have anything to do with me if those tissues didn’t obligate them to come? Strong demons like the ones in Behemoth’s Squad need a contractor with a strong body and a strong mind. I don’t have either.”

Oga just stared at him blankly. Over his shoulder, Baby Beel was giving him the same fish-eyed stare. He would have been amused by how much the demon prince was taking after Oga if not for the way their combined gaze was making him uncomfortable and frustrated. He felt his face heating up and he frowned, about to call his friend out on the weird look, when Oga pulled his eyes away and shook his head with a muttered, “Idiot Furuichi.”

Yeah, okay, fuck that. Furuichi’s scowl deepened, and he stiffened his good shoulder to ram Oga with all his might. The other man barely stumbled, but the returning push sent Furuichi careening into a brick wall.

And so the next week passed with Furuichi spending most of his time trying to sleep and failing, which didn’t exactly help him heal any faster. He spent his days bullying fodder thugs into giving up their back row seats so he could doze undetected by teachers, something he found much easier since rumors of the way he had beaten up a bunch of delinquents in the hall outside the nurse’s office had spread. Apparently, that hallway was now his territory (and Oga’s, but then the whole school was his territory, and it was assumed that if he hadn’t kicked you out, you had his permission to use the facilities), and every thug who had to use the nurse’s office now made a point of asking his permission before going there. It was simultaneously empowering and annoying.

The irritation from that attention was only compounded by the more personal concern of the Saints crew, who seemed to dog his and Oga’s steps wherever they went, sometimes blatantly in their company, and always at least marginally present. He couldn’t blame them, really; it was sort of their job as unofficial underlings to look out for their leader, and Furuichi by extension, but Furuichi was tired and in pain and generally just very embarrassed and stressed, and would have preferred to be left alone to lick his wounds.

The reprieve he was hoping for came that Friday night.

For the first time in far too long, he didn’t dream about blood and screams and glinting steel. Instead, he dreamt of luminous ice and howling wind, of strong, supple wood beneath his fingers, of twanging string and muscles burning with exertion. Massive gray mountains loomed in the distance, barely visible through clouds of swirling snow, and lovely pale figures danced across crisp white plains, and above it all, the glorious Sun shone His Light down upon them all.

Furuichi woke up tingling all over, feeling more energized than he had in weeks. He lay still for a long moment, reveling in the novelty of rejuvenation. He sighed contentedly as he arched his back a bit and wriggled his fingers and toes.

Silver eyes snapped open. Just yesterday his digits had been too numb with cold to do anything vaguely suggestive of dexterity. With disbelief and hope warring brutally within his mind, he took note of the rest of his body. No shivers, no numbness. His teeth weren’t chattering, and he was even sweating a bit under his heavy covers! He _wasn’t cold anymore_.

Furuichi could have cried with relief, and if his next breath was rather more sob-like than he would have ever admitted, well, there was no one around to hear it. He shifted up to push off the thick quilts, and couldn’t. He literally just couldn’t move. At all. It felt like bands of steel were keeping his body pressed to the mattress. Panic bubbling in his chest, he raised his head feebly to stare down the length of his body.

 _My sheets are sparkly_ , he thought distantly, utterly mystified. He blinked his eyes several times to rid them of the film of sleep and relieved not-tears and refocused on the bed. Not steel, but _ice_. Thick, clear, glimmering ice encased his entire bed from just under his shoulders and spilled over the foot. Furuichi stared.

“Haha. Ha. Heh. Ah, I’m still dreaming then. Time to wake up, real me,” he garbled, a rictus of disbelief stamped across his face. He clenched his fists, digging his nails into the flesh of his palm. He tried, and failed, to ignore the sharp sting that told him he was not asleep. He closed his eyes and wiggled a bit, then began to frantically thrash about. He cried out in frustration when the ice refused to crack. It was just too thick to break on his own; it was time to call in reinforcements.

“Mom! Hey, MOM! Help! Dad? Honoka, HEY!” No response. _Gaahh, where the hell are they!?_ A glance out the window told him; the sun was too high in the sky for it to be the early morning anymore. They had all left for work and school, by now. _Damn it, of all the days for Mom to let me sleep in for once!_

Okay, time for Plan C: call in different reinforcements. His phone was within easy reaching distance on the nightstand, provided he could get an arm free to grab it.

“Ahh, c’mon, come on, come _on_!” he chanted desperately, pressing his bad shoulder painfully against one side of his entrapment so that he could roll his good arm, twisting and wiggling, and finally loosening himself enough to let the arm slither out from beneath the sheets and ice. He stretched laboriously across to the nightstand, the rugged edge of the ice digging sharply into his side. He’d never been so relieved to wrap his fingers around the cool plastic of his phone.

He flipped it open and was immediately bombarded with notifications. Apparently, he had a missed call from Oga and half a dozen messages from Oga and three other numbers that he didn’t recognize.

_Where are you_

_Oi, don’t ignore me_

_Hey Furuchin, stop playing hooky! Ogacchi’s too grouchy without you here!_ That sounded like Hanazawa, a bit.

 _Idiotidiotidiotidiot._ Oga again. Bastard.

 _Hurry up and come in already. –Oomori_ He grinned stupidly at the thought of the aloof Red Tail checking up on him.

 _Okay?_ This last one wasn’t signed and could have been from just about anyone.

He quickly saved the new numbers to his phone before calling Oga. The phone barely rang once before his best friend was picking up, a dark scowl in his voice.

“Where are you, idiot? Oi, shut up!” he called to the chattering voices in the background. “Why didn’t you pick up?”

“I slept in. But look, I need help. I’m kind of stuck, and I can’t-“

“Where are you.”

“Um, home, but liste-“

“’Kay.” Furuichi pulled the phone away and stared as the dial tone beeped at him. Well, at least help was on the way, he mused as he huffed and fell back against his cool pillow.

Fifteen minutes later, it was as though a herd of elephants had descended upon his house. A heavy fist knocked open the front door, and what was definitely more than one pair of feet stampeded into the entranceway and up the stairs. Oga burst through the bedroom door looking as though he’d run the whole way there, and froze when he saw Furuichi. Whoever had followed plowed directly into his back, and Furuichi ended up with a delinquent dog pile in the middle of his floor.

“Fuckers!” Oga barked as he bodily shoved Toujou, Kanzaki, Himekawa, Hanazawa, Oomori, and Shiroyama off his back. Baby Beel blew a raspberry at them, and Natsume stood in the doorway laughing at them all beside the somewhat less amused Kunieda and Tanimura. Their antics came to an abrupt halt when they finally caught sight of Furuichi, completely encased in ice. He grinned at them sheepishly.

“Well, I’m not cold anymore, at least!”

“Waah, what is this!” Hanazawa exclaimed, eyes wide. She crouched down next to his bed to poke curiously at the ice.

“I just woke up like this. I have no idea what happened,” he explained helplessly.

Kanzaki moved over to kneel beside Hanazawa, confused and intrigued, and Toujou leaned over all three of them with a contemplative frown on his face. Oga pushed through the crowd.

“So I guess all the cold inside came out, or something? Whatever, time to get rid of it,” he said decisively, pushing up a sleeve and readying his marked fist. 

“No, don’t just punch it! I’m under here, moron! The last thing I need is a stomach full of ice chunks!”

“Well then how are we supposed to get you out, eh?

“Hey Toujou, think you could borrow a jack hammer from one of your construction jobs?” Natsume laughed from the back of the room where he was using the wall to support himself as he hunched over with tremors of mirth. Furuichi watched in horror as a look of dawning enlightenment spread across Toujou’s face.

“No! No jack hammers!”

“Yeah, don’t be stupid, Natsume. We need something stronger. Like a wrecking ball.”

“Ah, Kanzaki! So brilliant!”

“Maybe Himekawa can get a bulldozer from somewhere…?” Shiroyama mused, an expression of intense concentration on his face.

There were tears of hilarity streaming down Natsume’s face by now. Furuichi was becoming increasingly resigned to death via idiot delinquent.

“Excuse us!” Kunieda called from the back. Toujou stepped back, knocking Kanzaki and Hanazawa out of the way as well. The Red Tails’ leader stepped forward along with Himekawa and Tanimura, each carrying a steaming pot.

“Hey, did you take those from my kitchen? Wait, wait, what’s in those? Hey!” Furuichi yelped, suddenly very nervous.

“It’s boiling water, we’ll melt you out,” Kunieda said calmly. “Don’t worry, this isn’t enough to melt all of it, so you won’t get burned,” she finished with a reassuring smile. He clenched his eyes shut and turned his head away as he listened to the hiss of boiling water meeting ice, and then grimaced as he felt lukewarm water soaking his sheets and pajamas.

“There,” Kunieda said with a satisfied tone. “It should be thin enough where we poured around your chest to break with gentle force, and then you can just scoot out. _Gently_ , Oga!” she reminded, as the thug stepped up to finish the job.

“Ah,” he affirmed as he brought his fist down against the ice directly over Furuichi’s sternum. Thin cracks spiderwebbed across the ice, and without pause, Oga forced his fist the rest of the way through, then grabbed the trapped teen under the arms and yanked him bodily out of bed.

“Oi, Glasses, grab him some dry clothes,” Oga called, not taking his eyes off Furuichi as he examined him for anything resembling injury or discomfort. 

“Thanks for the help,” Furuichi said gratefully, offering a grin to the assorted delinquents gathered in his room.

“Hmph. Why was there even a situation like this in the first place?” Oomori said, disgruntled and confused, as she crossed her arms.

“Mm, this is really strange. Was it some demon, maybe, playing a trick? Targeting you as Oga’s best friend again?” Kunieda wondered. Furuichi shook his head. 

“I don’t know why a demon would just mess with me like that and not do anything else,” he said, accepting the t-shirt and sweatpants Himekawa silently handed him. “And anyway, that wouldn’t explain why my body doesn’t feel cold any more.”

“Moron, I already said it. The cold just came out,” Oga grunted. He punted a piece of broken ice off the floor at Furuichi’s leg. The pale teen returned the favor with a swift kick to Oga’s shin before bouncing back out of his friend’s range and heading into the bathroom to change. 

As he moved away, he heard Kunieda address Oga. “You really think Furuichi produced this ice by himself? He’s not even contracted with a demon, and I don’t think he has any demon blood.”

“Eh. Apparently he was some kind of badass spear-waving military tactician in a past life. Maybe he was a magic one, too.”

Furuichi snorted. He kind of wished it was true. That really did sound badass, when he put it like that. Now if only he could take the good without the bad, without the memories of death and dying and _grief_ …

It wasn’t until he was alone in the bathroom that Furuichi realized Himekawa had not said a word or even looked at him the whole time, even when handing him the outfit to change into, a pillar of silence among the chattering crowd of high school students. He finished dressing quickly and stepped back out to rejoin the group, grinning up at Toujou when the redhead patted him on the shoulder with a muttered “Okay?” He navigated the small crowd as they funneled out of his house, making a point to gravitate towards Himekawa as they emptied out onto the street.

“Hey, senpai. Thanks for coming all the way out here,” he grinned as they moved down the street in the direction of the school. 

He watched, bemused, as Himekawa stared at him blankly for a moment, started to open his mouth, then merely grunted at him and walked past. Furuichi stepped up next to Natsume and spoke to him quietly.

“Hey, is Himekawa alright? He’s been really quiet today. The last few days, actually,” he murmured into the taller man’s ear. Natsume turned to stare at him disbelievingly.

“Well, yeah, because Oga beat the shit out of him,” the senior said.

“Wha- Why would he do that? And anyway, Himekawa’s not bruised at all.”

“Heh. Our badass leader punished him for getting you hurt with Takamiya. Couldn’t let it show, though, because we can’t afford to show anything but a united front, with Fuji still out there, so he just went for the torso.”

“But why would he do that? Himekawa did a good job, it was a really sound strategy. I mean, yeah, I- I got hurt,” _don’t think about it, don’t THINK_ , “but we won that battle because of him. A-and it was better than anything I came up with,” he finished dimly. 

He looked up to see Natsume with an odd expression on his face, vaguely confused, as though Furuichi was some puzzle whose words he couldn’t quite parse. The look made him uncomfortable, so Furuichi tried to laugh off his previous words and glum tone. He felt pretty good about the smile he was able to force, but Natsume’s frown deepened anyway. 

“He screwed up. Badly. You _died_ , just like you told Oga before. It took a while to sink in that it was Himekawa’s fault, I guess. He’s the one who apologized, you know, that day with the boiler. He came up to Oga when you were sleeping and bowed his head. It was pretty remarkable,” Natsume laughed darkly. “He kicked his ass after school, then told him not to talk to you or anything until he found a suitable way to apologize.

“I don’t blame him for anything,” he protested.

“You should. The rest of us do. After all, where would we be without our General?” Natsume gave him a vague smile and then _ruffled his hair_. Furuichi scowled at the teasing and knocked his hand away, grumbling under his breath and backing away in case the senior tried it again. His tactical retreat had him backing up into Oga.

“Thought anymore about getting a demon?” the taller man grunted, hands stuffed in his pockets and slouched indolently as he watched Furuichi from the corner of his eye.

“Um. No.” He spoke blankly, a little surprised, and a little thoughtful, now. The whole ice thing had him terribly confused, and while he didn’t really buy into Oga’s theory that the power had _come from inside him_ , it probably wouldn’t hurt to have a powerful supernatural being watching over him. He shrugged the thoughts away, no use contemplating the impossible, after all. Furuichi was quite sure he would make a poor contractor, and was equally sure any potential contractees knew it too.

“You’re really stupidly stubborn sometimes, you know that?” Oga made a move to shove him, and Furuichi retaliated with a swift karate chop to his dark head. 

“No, I’m just not stupid enough to put stock in a plan that won’t work. 

Oga just rolled his eyes and kept walking, Furuichi keeping even with his pace by his side. Occupied with bantering with his friend, he didn’t notice how the rest of the Saints crew gradually fell behind them, and what was once a mob of delinquent teenagers became an entourage of loyal followers trailing respectfully behind a king and his general.


	4. Frenzy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Story Warnings: Some violence and strong language. Mentions of deceased OCs.
> 
> Disclaimer: If you recognize any names, terms, or concepts it's because they don't belong to me.

Furuichi sat at his desk in the back of the room, staring idly out the window and twirling a pen between his fingers. He was pretty sure there was a teacher somewhere in the classroom he should have been paying attention to, but he didn’t think he’d be able to hear the lesson even if he tried, over the raucous voices of the other delinquents in the classroom. He resolutely not-pouted at the reality of being back in school after the previous weekend.

The whole crew had ended up just wandering around town that day, skipping class, loitering until shopkeepers shook their fists, mocking other students through classroom windows, and overtaking any arcade they came across, while Kunieda did her best to temper their antics. The weekend had passed in a similar way, with he and Oga just goofing off and playing video games part of the time, and walking around bumping into other thugs the rest of the time. It was blessedly normal, and Furuichi couldn’t have said how much that familiarity eased his mind. More than perhaps anything else, being able to wander around in nothing more than a light jacket to ward off the early spring chill had left Furuichi feeling giddy and hopeful.

That hope was unfortunately short-lived; despite the reprieve a few days prior, Furuichi was back to nightmare-induced insomnia by the time Tuesday rolled around. He grumbled a bit as his gaze dropped from the window. Noon was approaching, and his eyelids were starting to sag – a quick nap before lunch would do him some good, maybe.

 

_Seven around a fire, five wounded, three basically children, all of them thin and starving and full of fury and revenge and nothing else. Lost four in the raid today, lost four precious allies against those pigs, THOSE FILTHY VERMIN, scourge on the land, but if_ they _were the savages then why weren’t they the ones scavenging for roots and dying of exposure?_

_Third Unit wiped out yesterday, Fifth the week before, didn’t know about the Sixth, would have to find them later, see how they were faring. Only four more like this one left, it was always a losing game, had been since the Prince fell. But it was **fucking worth it** , to break the savages, cut the supply lines, raid the villages, ambush the remaining troops. _They _had won the war, but Fainor and his people would make them regret it. But later. It’s time for rest, now. Rest and mourning._

_So he sits listens watches sighs. These are boys here, young and feverish with revenge. They weren’t at Moesring, they didn’t know hopelessness. He’s taking advantage. He doesn’t care._

_There’s a commotion, the boys across the fire fall back, stumble, trip – cute little pups, so awkward and stumbly, not so cute when they die, though – and they scream. He starts to turn, he heard nothing, why are they scared? But nope, can’t, face in the dirt, weight on the back, needle claws and crushing feet, can’t breath, crushed nose, heavy-wet-hot-rancid-_ dripping _breath in his ear._

_He hears more than feels the wet elastic snap of a spinal chord as great yellow teeth rip into his flesh._

 

Furuichi jolted up with a choking sob, stumbled out of his seat where he had fallen into a doze on the desk, and collapsed to the ground, pressed into the corner at the back of the room. He immediately curled, pressing his forehead to his upturned knees, a hand clamped over his mouth the keep in the bile and stomach acid that burned the back of his throat and tingled across his tongue. 

And then something else, something immense, was burbling up from his abdomen, and he saw from the corner of his tearing eyes that Nene – _she’s not a freshman, why was she in here? –_ had jumped half out of her chair upon seeing him wake. She looked terrified, he thought distantly, her eyes wide and her lips trembling. Her hand stretched vaguely towards him, red painted nails glaring at him like life-blood.

His shoulders were vibrating, heavy with the force of the entity he tried to contain, but it was no use. What emerged was not sobs or vomit or enraged shrieks, but deep, rasping laughs. He absolutely _howled_ with morbid hysteria, dimly aware of Nene backing away nervously and of the door slamming open as more footsteps and voices rushed in.

He quaked with jerking, keening cries as he relived his first death. It wasn’t fucking _fair_ that he should have to experience his life cutting out _twice_ , and then countless times more in his dreams.

“A _wolf_ ,” he heaved, “It was just a wolf _._ Not even a pack of the fuckers, just one! Jesus, of everything that could have done me in. Trolls, bears, rogues, _the_ _Men’s army…_ Gods, how fucking _pathetic_ is that? Hahaha!” He couldn’t contain his hysteria. It was just so _fucking ironic_. He had faced death countless times, in avalanches and rockslides and training accidents in his youth, the violent early conflicts and battles, the _actual_ war, the guerrilla warfare he’d instigated in the aftermath. But it was nothing more than a single feral beast that had finally taken him out.

“Oi, Furuichi, snap out of it!” He heard the words and smelled the pomade only distantly, and when a hand smacked at his cheek, it offered not a reprieve from the memories, but a reminder of the wretched three days he had once been held by enemy forces before his soldiers had mounted a masterful assault to free him 

_Get the fuck AWAYFROMME-_

And there was a terrible rush from his outstretched hands, so cold it burned and left him drained and weak. He heard a startled exclamation and opened his eyes to see an utterly silent crowd of thugs surrounding him with a wide berth of several feet. Himekawa was at the forefront, sprawled out on his back, limbs akimbo and glasses askew, where Oga had apparently grabbed the collar of his shirt and hauled him backwards, away from the meter long icicle now imbedded in the floor. A piece of fabric from the senior’s flowered shirt had been skewered by the projectile.

They were all silent for a long moment, casting the same horrified gaze at the jagged frozen fang that had nearly punctured Himekawa through the middle. The only sound echoing through the alarmed hush was the senior’s loud, panicked breathing.

“You are not okay,” Oga said, breaking the silence as he dropped Himekawa’s collar, stepping past the senior and the icicle to kneel in front of his friend.

“Oga, I…” Furuichi gasped. It was a different sort of panic settling into his chest, now. Before it had been a mindless, terrified, overwhelmed hysteria. The feeling now clenching at his rapidly beating heart was cold and numb and creeping, a promise of future dread rather than a reminder of the same.

“C’mon, you can’t stay here.” The dark haired teen gripped his upper arm and lifted Furuichi to his feet, dragging him through the crowd that shifted immediately to let them pass. Furuichi resisted briefly, casting a glance at where Himekawa had yet to rise from the floor.

“Senpai, I’m so, _so_ sorry, I–“ He didn’t know what he wanted to say, but he was unable to finish regardless, as Oga continued pulling him out of the classroom. He was able to catch a glimpse of Himekawa nodding at him, and felt a rush of relief at the apparent forgiveness.

“What the fuck was that, Furuichi,” Oga said, worryingly calm. He had taken them to the nurse’s office, for some reason. Furuichi hoped it wasn’t in anticipation of making him take a nap again. That had been marginally humiliating.

“It was- it was a really bad one, this time. Found out how I died before, and then it freaked me out when he touched me,” he responded quietly, leaning back against the door.

“Yeah, that’s pretty fucking obvious. Look, that doctor thinks you’ll get better if you make a contract, so _make a fucking contract already!_ ” Oga snarled, calm breaking, taking him by the shoulders and shaking him. Furuichi knocked his hands away harshly.

“ _I know, Oga!_ You think I _like_ being like this? It was bad enough when it was just _me_ , but now I’m hurting other people with this bullshit too! It’s not okay, and _I’m_ not okay, and I don’t know what to fucking do!”

“You could stop acting like such a fucking coward, for a start! I know you, dumbass, it’s not that you don’t think a demon won’t make a contract with you, it’s that you’re scared of asking and finding out it’s true and it’s _pathetic_!”

“Well so fucking _what_ if I’m not exactly eager for more confirmation that I’m useless and weak and worthless!”

“Where’s this shit coming from, Furuichi? You didn’t used to have this fucked up opinion of yourself! Now you’re just all ‘boo-hoo, I’m a wimpy little _shit_ that can’t even wipe my own _ass_!’ Man _up_ , goddamnit! 

“Fuck you, Oga!”

“No, fuck _you!_ ”

The argument rapidly devolved from there, with both boys yelling “Fug ‘ou!” as loudly as possible from where they were rolling on the ground, pinching and clawing at each other’s cheeks and mouths. It ended when Oga accidentally planted his knee in Furuichi’s abdomen, knocking the breath out of him and stealing the ‘Fuck You!’ from his voice.

“Hah, I win!” Oga crowed, shifting to twine his arm around Furuichi’s neck in a suffocating chokehold. A swift, brutal pinch to the skin over Oga’s ribs had the smaller teen squirming out of his friend’s grip and kicking at his ankle petulantly. Oga just snorted and threw a heavy arm back over Furuichi’s shoulder, half-dragging him outside.

“C’mon, you can buy me ice cream.”

“Buy your own ice cream, moron!” Furuichi yelped as he struggled under his friend’s arm. Despite his outward preoccupation, he couldn’t help but wonder at how easily Oga had dropped the subject of him getting a demon, especially after this latest breakdown. He had to hand it to his friend, though – a good screaming match had certainly drained him of his panicked energy and calmed his nerves. He tried not to think too deeply on whether Oga had just been trying to provoke a response from him, or if he really thought Furuichi was being a coward.

The next few days passed with an uncomfortable number of nervous looks from the Ishiyama students. They tiptoed around him and kept absolutely, utterly silent whenever he dozed, and the uncharacteristic reservedness frustrated and disheartened him enough that he opted to just skip whenever he was tired, retiring to the nurse’s office or the roof to nap. He couldn’t help but notice the way thugs tensed when he approached, and relaxed as soon as he had passed. Normally he might have been proud of provoking such a reaction, but knowing their nervousness stemmed from fear of his instability rather than respect for his influence left a sour taste in his mouth.

All of that was nothing, however, compared to the hurt that came from the Saints crew’s trepidation. They still spoke to him just as frequently, and still dogged his and Oga’s tracks, but yet their eyes lingered on him, and their words were quiet and calm and inoffensive and it was just so brutally obvious that they were trying not to set him off, that the frustration would probably give him a breakdown sooner than anything else.

Three days after his collapse, it was not some terrible memory-dream that wrenched Furuichi from sleep, for once. This time, it was the unmistakable feeling of being watched, of an intruder encroaching on his personal space. Furuichi’s eyes shot open, heart pounding, and he tried – and failed – to wrest himself into a sitting position. His blankets had become thoroughly encased in ice again during the night – though less so than before – and as he flailed, trying to free himself, he became entangled in the stiff, cold blanket and tumbled unceremoniously onto the ground, right at the boot-clad feet of the intruder. He glanced up, eyes following the long uniformed body to stare directly into Hecadoth’s unamused face.

“What are you doing?” the demon said blankly. Furuichi frowned up at him, still struggling to free himself from the fabric.

“That’s my question! What do you think you’re doing, watching me sleep?” he grumbled back. “And would you _please_ give me a hand, here?”

Hecadoth snorted long-sufferingly, but complied. He grabbed a corner of the blanket and yanked harshly, sending Furuichi rolling out onto the floor. “Heard you’re in the market for a contract. I want in.”

Furuichi stared up at him, flabbergasted. “You…you what? How did you even know…?”

“I overheard Laymia’s kid telling the doctor. I wanted to get here and stake a claim before any of the other pillars found out. I wasn’t _watching_ you,” he growled at the end. 

“Why do you even _care_? Or- or the rest of Behemoth’s squad? And what do you mean, ‘stake a claim?’” Furuichi said, becoming increasingly flustered. He just really, _really_ didn’t get it.

Hecadoth just stared at him with a strange look on his face, sort of partway between confused and aghast, Furuichi thought. He watched the expression settle into one he was more familiar with, especially of late, but was no less confused by: it was the expression everyone wore when they thought he was being stupid. And Furuichi was starting to get really fucking sick of seeing it. Hecadoth opened his mouth to respond, but he seemed to freeze suddenly, posture becoming ram-rod straight and eyes darting to stare piercingly out the window.

“There’s no time to explain, others have arrived. Quickly, form a contract with me, I _will_ be your primary!” the demon snarled, surging forward and down to kneel in front of Furuichi, gripping his shoulders tightly.

“Wait! Wait, what the hell is going on, here, Hecadoth? I-“

“I’ll explain everything _later_ , although I shouldn’t need to! Do you want a contract or not?” he broke in loudly. Furuichi had only barely uttered a sound reminiscent of agreement when Hecadoth’s jaw clamped shut quite suddenly with a visceral _squelch_. Furuichi watched, the beginnings of horror touching his mind, as a thick stream of dark blood spilled from Hecadoth’s lips. The demon’s mouth opened wide and he lurched forward lightning-fast, teeth sinking deeply into the flesh of Furuichi’s shoulder right through the cloth of his shirt. It _hurt_ , a ferocious burning radiating rapidly from the wound and spreading through his entire body, setting his veins on fire.

The teen howled, knocked his fists against the demon’s chest and shoulders, to no avail. His pain and panic were beginning to cloud his mind with a white haze when he felt a warm tongue lave against the wound, and the sharp, stinging pain withdrew with a cool wave from his limbs and faded to a vague sort of ache in his shoulder. His straining body relaxed with the retreat of the pain, leaving his muscles sore and twitching. Hecadoth backed away slowly, their combined blood spilled onto his chin. His hands still held fast to Furuichi’s shoulders, but the grip was no longer bruising, just firm, almost supportive. The demon was staring at him hesitantly, face flushed and pupils dilated. He seemed about to speak when a loud voice broke through the fog of Furuichi’s mind.

“Fucking _hell_ , Heca, you could’ve waited for all of us to get here! You know, so he could _choose_?” Agiel exclaimed from Furuichi’s bed, where she had apparently just burst in through the window. Behind her, two other figures clambered in, knocking elbows and shoving at each other with snarls. Hecadoth snorted. 

“Please. Like you wouldn’t have taken advantage if you had gotten here first. Same to you two, Graphel and Yata. You were just too slow to get primary.”

“Contain your arrogance in front of a superior, General,” Yata said blandly, somehow managing to convey incredible disdain through his dead-fish expression. “As the highest rank here, I claim secondary,” he stated, stepping down off the bed and moving towards Furuichi in a way that seemed terribly foreboding. Furuichi gasped and tried to shuffle backwards, but was stopped by Hecadoth’s brick wall of a body.

“Stop! Just- just back off! What do you want?! Any of you! What the _fuck_ is going on?” he exclaimed. He could feel his breathing start to pick up alarmingly because seriously, _why was his room being invaded by fucking strong demons that all apparently wanted something from him?!_

_Calm down,_ a voice murmured to him. _We did not come to do you harm._

_H-Hecadoth…?_

_Yeah. It’s one of the conditions I set in the contract, that we can talk like this, mentally._ Before he could ask any more questions, Hecadoth spoke aloud. “Leave him alone for now. He didn’t know we would be coming. It’s freaking him out. He won’t be able to accept more contracts until he calms down.”

_Stop making it sound like I’m panicking!_

_You are absolutely panicking._

“The fuck d’you mean, he didn’t know? Laymia’s brat told everyone that this kid wanted contracts,” Graphel growled. Agiel had plopped down brazenly on his bed, legs spread obscenely, and was regarding him bemusedly, while Yata just…stood. Perfectly still, staring at him blankly. It was fucking creepy.

“Let’s hold off on explanations until the rest of the pillars arrive,” Hecadoth suggested. Agiel grinned.

“Sure. I’m not gonna complain about watching you two cuddle over there. It’s fucking adorable,” she cackled. Furuichi started, realizing he had never moved away from Hecadoth after trying to run from Yata. He tore himself from the demon’s light grip on his hip and scooted back against the wall, where he could keep all four demons easily within sight. Not like it would do any good, really; they could squash him as easily as he could an ant. 

He had only just settled back and was about to make a grab for his day clothes when an immense pressure crashed down upon him. He gasped and huddled in on himself and then Hecadoth was there beside him, just sitting, his leg and shoulder brushing Furuichi’s. The minimal contact seemed to diminish the terrifying force weighing on him.

_That’s Jabberwock_ , came Hecadoth’s disembodied voice. _You probably couldn’t completely feel him before, with the tissue contracts. The power exchange for those was muddied for general use. You won’t feel it as much once you contract with him._

The pressure was growing, growing, crushing down on his shoulders. He could hear the footsteps now, steady and even, making their way up his stairs, and there was Jabberwock, massive scarred frame filling the doorway. The demon commander had to duck significantly to keep his head from punching through the ceiling.

“We meet again, kid,” the demon commander growled. Furuichi gulped nervously, eyes wide as saucers. He tried to offer some kind of non-threatening yet self-assured gesture, but ended up with a pained grimace badly disguised as a grin contorting his face. Jabberwock stalked closer, his immense body forcing the other demons to hug the walls as he passed. A giant hand shot out disproportionately fast and took hold of Furuichi’s collar, dragging him up to his feet. The demon’s face surged up before his own, eyes trained on his bloodied shoulder. Jabberwock took a deep sniff and growled, turning on Hecadoth. 

“Hecadoth, you little bastard. You’re too full of yourself.”

“I don’t regret it, sir,” the smaller demon said, staring his commander dead on, tone ringing with something that was not quite challenge, but very nearly. Jabberwock snorted.

“Nothing for it now, except to kill you, I guess. Good thing you’re too useful for that,” he grunted. “Come on, we’re heading back. You too, kid.”

“What? Where? I- I have school in the morning!" 

“Bullshit, it’s Friday. We’re abducting you for the weekend.”

“Oh my god,” he said faintly. Jabberwock released a bark of coarse, caustic laughter.

“There’s no god here, boy.”


	5. Macao

The next half hour passed in a blur of dimensional transfers and darkened, upside-down scenery, from where Jabberwock had thrown Furuichi across his shoulder after becoming frustrated with how slowly the teen was walking. For all that the demon was basically a walking monolith of muscle, his shoulder was quite bony, and it had dug uncomfortably into Furuichi’s belly.

Now, he was sat in a plush red armchair in the middle of some kind of lounge room, surrounded on all sides by glowering hell-dwellers. The group of demons that had come to collect him was all there, but several more had joined the procession through dark stone halls by the time they had reached what Agiel mentioned was the squad’s break room. All of the pillar Barons had eventually shown up and claimed chairs of their own, and about a dozen other Generals had squeezed in as well, bickering over the last few chairs and leaning against the walls. Even Behemoth had passed by, snickering and waving mockingly before tottering off, muttering something under his breath about over-eager youngsters.

A number of demons had shot Hecadoth nasty looks as they made their way in, but Jabberwock’s overwhelming presence was enough to deter any legitimate fights. Despite the lack of overt violence, it was nonetheless a small room filled to the brim with the powerful and aggravated members of a demonic military unit. And Furuichi was in his pajamas in the middle of it all. He sank deeper into the chair, trying to become invisible but failing miserably. He was the focus of the squad’s attention, after all, although he was still trying to come to terms with the intensity of their interest.

Jabberwock waited quietly for a few more minutes, blandly watching all the demons who entered the room, before finally speaking up.

“Right, all of you shut the fuck up and settle down.” All commotion ceased immediately. Furuichi wondered it was like to command that level of respect.

“You guys all recognize this kid. He’s the partner of Prince Beelzebub IV’s contractor, and the one who was able to use mine and my old man’s power within half an hour, with a few other contracts before and in between. And now he’s willing to accept permanent contracts, so you better be damn well sure _we’re_ gonna take advantage. 

“Most of you will only be a part of the unit contract we’re going to form. Me and a couple others will make personal contracts. We’re here to decide who those are,” Jabberwock grunted. Rustling echoed through the room as demons grumbled and shifted discontentedly. One finally spoke up audibly.

“Sir, he was fine to cycle through contracts before, why can’t we all have personal contracts?” called the massive, bearded demon. Furuichi couldn’t quite see his face through the cloud of cigar smoke surrounding him, but thought the demon’s name might have been Basilisk.

“He’s good, but not that good. The strain’ll kill him faster than those tissues would have.”

“Let’s not complain about most not having a personal contract. It’s quite amazing that all of us could be part of any contract with him at all,” said a demon that looked like an older Lamia.

“Right. So, brat, obviously I’ll be your secondary, since Hecadoth jumped the gun and took primary. Any thoughts for your third, fourth?”

Furuichi started. “You mean I actually get a choice in this?”

“You’re the one who finally decided to accept contracts, don’t act like you’ve got no say,” the massive commander growled. Furuichi paled and flinched back, averting his eyes.

“Sir, he didn't know when I showed up that we were aware of his availability,” Hecadoth broke in. A few demons bared their teeth at the sound of his voice, but Hecadoth seemed to take the hostility in stride. If anything, he seemed a little smug at the attention.

Jabberwock paused for a moment and briefly averted his eyes from Furuichi, whom he’d been staring at the whole time, to the smaller demon.

“The fuck do you mean, he didn’t know?” 

“He was genuinely confused when I arrived, sir, and had no idea that we might be aware he was interested in forming contracts. Or that we might be interested in accepting the offer.” There was confused muttering around the room, and Jabberwock’s frown deepened. Furuichi was mildly terrified.

“Oi, kid. Why didn’t you know we were coming?”

“I– I just didn’t? I mean, it’s not like I put the word out, or anything. I don’t know why Lamia was spreading rumors.”

“She must have gotten the idea somewhere, brat.”

Furuichi paused for a moment to gather his thoughts, and also to consider the young demon’s actions. It had been weeks since Dr. Forcas had recommended forming a demonic contract, so why were they only showing up now? There was no time to contemplate further, though, because the way Jabberwock was staring at him gave Furuichi the impression that the squad commander considered ‘patience’ as valuable and useful as a rash on his privates. 

“Well, um. Hecadoth, and Agiel, you guys know I fought Lucifer and the spellmaster she’s contracted with, right? Or, well, not so much fought, as got my ass handed to me and my soul torn out, ripped up, and eaten?”

There was a low whistle from somewhere in the room.

“Yeah, well apparently the whole thing jumbled me up spiritually, and I’ve been having supernatural issues lately,” he said with a vague, dismissive wave of his hand. “Dr. Forcas said that forming a contract with a demon might help somehow. That’s how Lamia knew. I… didn’t think I’d be able to make a contract, though, so I don’t know what’s up with you guys,” he shrugged.

“What’s up with us is that there’s no fucking way we’re missing out on a sweet deal like this,” Agiel grinned.

“That’s not– I mean, why do you even want the contracts in the first place?”

“Having a contract with a human makes it infinitely easier to traverse the dimensions, and allows full access to our powers regardless of the dimension. Having you, the contractor, in the human world makes you an invaluable anchor that we can hone in on, almost entirely removing the need for a dimensional transfer demon. That you are able to serve as that anchor for an entire military squad is almost unheard of, and is _very_ convenient,” Quetzacoatl called from the back of the room. He towered over the rest of the crowd, apparently having made a seat out of the interlinked arms of Vabam and Schethalim.

“What makes me a good anchor, though? Why do you want _me_?” Furuichi asked a bit desperately.

“You’re so _strange_ ,” Salamander murmured, not entirely answering his question, resting his chin in the palm of his hand and regarding Furuichi with a broad, eerie smile. “You’re a perfectly average human, but you have such resilience to demonic power. You’ve been able to withstand Prince Beelzebub IV’s electricity, you were able to accommodate for the vastly different powers of multiple demons within a very short amount of time, you were even able to successfully hold contracts with our commanders. _Strange_.”

“Well, not so average anymore,” he said, choosing to ignore the bit about ‘resilience’ until he had the chance to contemplate that further. “Last week, I woke up encased in several inches of ice, and a few days ago I almost skewered a classmate with a giant icicle.”

“Oh~ That sounds like fun,” Agiel grinned into his ear from where she had draped herself over the back of his chair.

“Ice, huh. Naga’s the best at dealing with that. Hear that, pipsqueak? You’ll get tertiary,” Jabberwock grunted.

“Thank you, sir!” Naga said, eyes widening slightly as his posture became somehow even stiffer. The pillars seated around him directed ferocious glares in the small demon’s direction.

“Yeah, yeah. Alright, the kid can probably take one more personal contract. I’ll let the rest of you bastards make your cases to me and the kid, now.” There was an instant uproar. Demons were immediately roaring and thrashing, trying to get close to talk to Furuichi and Jabberwock, and striking one another as they interfered. Furuichi paled and shrunk back as spittle and blood flecked across his arm. Hecadoth shifted from his position beside the chair and moved in front of Furuichi, blocking him from view.

Furuichi could not see his face, but he heard a guttural snarl from the demon as he whipped out a fist and punched a General that Furuichi did not recognize across the jaw, sending the other flying back into the crowd. The display of power seemed to simultaneously enrage and unsettle the other demons, who all snarled at him but made no move to approach again. Instead, they called out to Furuichi, voices all pitched to reach his ears over the cries of the others demons, creating a terrible symphony of guttural voices and furious roars. And then it stopped.

Furuichi remembered the first graphically violent anime movie he’d seen as a child. He couldn’t remember the title anymore, but he would never forget the awe he’d felt when the hero of the story – some nameless samurai, alone against the world – had taken on a whole battalion of fully armored enemies. The hero had sliced through armor, flesh, and bone, again and again, as easily as if cutting butter with a hot knife, decapitating and bisecting bodies left and right with imperceptible effort. And Furuichi was reminded of that impossible blade as a single, faint hum rang out across the room, slicing through the cacophony and settling the room into a thick, tense silence.

Every head turned to the simple wooden stool back by the coffee machine, upon which was daintily perched the pink-haired demoness who had spoken up earlier, and who had just cleared her throat. Her shoulders were relaxed, her posture dignified, her smile kind and gentle, but her eyes were inexorable and vicious and promised just as much bloodshed as that childhood movie had splashed about generously. 

“Commander, I think it would be in the squad’s best interests if I was granted the quaternary contract.”

 _Weren’t you the one who scolded everyone for complaining about not getting a personal contract, like, ten minutes ago?!_ Inner Furuichi screeched. Outer Furuichi was far too intimidated to do anything but try to meld into his chair.

“Granted, Laymia,” Jabberwock grunted, seeming unaffected by the sheer violence she was emitting. He slapped his thighs and stood. “Alright, that’s that. You ready for more contracts now, kid?” he said, already moving over to Furuichi. The teen threw his arms up defensively.

“Look, guys, just wait. This…isn’t really going to work, is it?” Furuichi ventured. It was something that had bothered him since Hecadoth had first appeared in his room back home, and he knew he had to bring it up before things got too much more out of control. He started to rise out of his chair, but a sudden spike in pressure from Jabberwock had him sinking back down, trembling.

“ _The fuck do you mean_.” His growl was low and deep and it pierced him to the bone. The demons around him weren’t unaffected, either. Agiel sagged more fully against his chair, and Hecadoth swallowed audibly beside him. Even those further away seemed to lean more against the walls or their own chairs. 

“It– it’s an issue of allegiance,” Furuichi persevered, trying to swallow but finding his throat dry and his tongue thick. “My loyalty belongs to Oga, who is Baby Beel’s father, so of course I support Beel as the next Demon Lord. But you guys support En.” He hadn’t been interrupted yet, he thought gratefully, and that gave him confidence. He shifted a bit under the terrifying pressure of Jabberwock’s power and leaned forward, bracing his forearms on his knees. He stared straight at the demon commander, although he kept his gaze focused on the demon’s eyebrows, not quite confident (or suicidal) enough to meet his dark, furious eyes. He pressed on, unaware of the compelling image he made, bright-eyed and intent even in the face of an enraged monster.

“I will do everything in my power to oppose you if you try to harm Oga or impede Beel. Do not doubt that for a moment. You guys might think that having me as a contractor places you in a good position to use my friendship with Oga against him, but remember that I’ll also be in position to deny you access to the human world and to report your movements to _our_ army, for counteraction. That kind of mutual distrust doesn’t make for a good partnership, does it.” He did not phrase it as a question.

The pressure Jabberwock was emitting lightened a bit, and the massive demon surveyed him quietly, intently. He spoke after a moment.

“Our loyalty lies with Lord En, regardless of whether he is our official sovereign. Nothing will ever change that. However, the Demon Lord has officially declared Prince Beelzebub IV as his successor. We are bound to serve him as our future king. The Demon Lord has further issued an order of noninterference with the prince’s activities in the human world,” Jabberwock said, his voice monotone, but his eyes alight with something Furuichi could not identify.

Furuichi surveyed him, looking for any hint of lying. He did not think Jabberwock was much for deception; he gave the impression of being a fighting idiot like Oga and Toujou, but he would not be the commander of Behemoth’s Pillar Squad without having some mind for tactics, right? He could not definitively assess the demon’s honesty right now, however, as he knew almost nothing about him. What he did know was that he had make the decision right now, in this moment, of whether to take a leap of faith. He did not notice the hushed, anticipatory silence that resounded through the room, every demon starkly intent on the confrontation and waiting with baited breath for his response.

“…Then there’s no problem.”

“Excellent.” A slow, vicious smile spread across Jabberwock’s face, and he resumed stalking over to Furuichi. “Naga, Laymia. Up here,” he called offhandedly as he reached forward and snagged Furuichi’s collar. With a single, sharp motion, too fast for Furuichi’s eyes to follow, he ripped his hand away. The seams of the shirt tore with the sudden, sharp force, and Furuichi yelped as the fabric of the collar dug into the back of his neck. The shredded shirt came away with the demon commander’s hand, leaving the teen half-naked. He was too shocked by the sudden move to be modest. A low whistle caught his attention.

“Whew, Heca. That’s a helluva contract. It’s so _big~_ ” Agiel cooed, poking at his shoulder which Hecadoth had bitten, now caked with dried blood. Furuichi turned his head to try to assess the damage. He could clearly see a set of puncture marks from the demon’s teeth in the very middle of a replica of the mark tattooed onto Hecadoth’s face. He was surprised to see how large it was, so much more so than Oga’s contract mark. The shorter arms of the symbol stretched across the width of his shoulder, from the base of his neck to the shoulder joint, and the longer arms darkened the flesh of his left pectoral, almost down to his nipple. He assumed it stretched the same distance down his back.

“Little shit,” Jabberwock muttered. “He would have been able to make more than four personal contracts if you hadn’t been so stingy, Hecadoth.” The demon offered no response to the accusation, only allowing his answering smirk to err on the side of extremely fucking smug. Almost imperceptibly fast, Naga’s arm whipped out to land a small, but heavy, fist in Hecadoth’s gut. He doubled over, gasping, but his smile did not fade. Jabberwock rolled his eyes and turned to regard Naga and Laymia. 

“My contract’s going on his right hand. Pick your own places,” Jabberwock said to Naga and Laymia.

“Do you have a preference, Furuichi?” Laymia questioned. Whatever violent bloodlust she had displayed earlier had faded, and the warm smile she gave him was reflected in her spring-green eyes. Furuichi sighed despondently.

“No, anywhere’s fine. S’not like I’ll ever be able to wear a swimsuit in public after this. Everyone’s gonna think I’m some kind of punk…”

“You _are_ some kind of punk,” Hecadoth snorted, rolling his eyes. Furuichi scowled at him.

“Then I’ll mark your left upper arm,” Laymia said, just as Naga muttered, “right shoulder.”

Almost simultaneously, the three demons brought a gloveless hand to their mouths and sliced open a finger on a fang. Again, nearly in tandem, they gouged a bloodied claw into the flesh they’d chosen to mark. Furuichi tensed and squeezed his eyes shut, bracing himself for the pain that had accompanied the contract formation with Hecadoth, only tripled, this time. He did not have to wait long. 

A violent surge of sharp energy coursed through him, as though he’d taken hold of a livewire, filling his senses with ozone and acrid smoke. He gasped, entire body seizing and snapping to attention, and then relaxing past his ability to control. He collapsed limply back against his chair as the feeling passed. But there was no pain. Just an overwhelming feeling of sheer _sensation_ , unpleasant in its own right, but far from the terrible burning of the first contract. His first instinct was to ask if something had gone wrong, but the exultant, self-satisfied expressions on the three demons’ faces told him otherwise.

“Why didn’t it hurt this time?” he asked dazedly, woozy from the intense sensation. Jabberwock snorted.

“It’s like fucking, kid. First time always hurts for the recipient.” Furuichi flushed deeply. He wondered how much it had hurt for Oga to become contracted with Beel, but figured the badass wouldn’t have even noticed the pain of the contract forming beyond the pain of the baby’s temper tantrum that day.

“Also, I was…rough. I panicked when I felt the others coming, and did not take the care I should have. Sorry,” Hecadoth admitted. Furuichi stared, aghast. _Stop making it sound like you took my virginity, you shitty demon._

“Alright, that’s settled. Someone find a room for the kid; let him sleep on the contracts. We’ll get down to business tomorrow. Hear that, you fuckers? _Meeting adjourned!_ And don’t forget to give blood for the unit contract. We’ll do that tomorrow, too,” the commander barked as he forced his way out through the crowd. Not that he had to do much forcing, of course. The horde of pillars parted like the ocean before a vessel as he walked.

Hecadoth turned to Furuichi, gripped his upper arm, and lifted him bodily out of the chair. The teen swayed alarmingly on his feet for a moment, but was able to catch himself, mostly because the idea of steadying himself on any of the demons around him made his temples break out in a light sweat.

“There should be a room available in the northern wing, where travelling dignitaries stay,” Laymia offered, resting a gloved hand on his bare shoulder and guiding him towards the door.

“We’ve hosted foreign dignitaries?” Naga murmured contemplatively, falling into step with the other two demons and Furuichi.

“Well, no,” Laymia admitted. “At least not in the northern wing. We usually put them in the dungeons. But! The rooms are there, and on the plus side, you know that they’ve never been used!”

“Which is good, because there’s no one here who would have washed the sheets,” Hecadoth grunted as the four continued into the hallway.

Now that he was no longer being toted around upside down, Furuichi could see that Behemoth’s 34th Pillar Squad was…boring. The hallways were narrow, damp passageways of dark gray stone, cold and stark, and the few windows were too narrow and too high up to see much beyond glimpses of bizarrely colored landscape and lethal looking wildlife. Furuichi crossed his arms over his bare chest and tried to unsuccessfully suppress a shiver. They walked in silence, before the discomfort of the situation prompted the silver-haired teen to speak up with a question that had been teasing vaguely at his mind.

“Why are you guys being so… _courteous_ about this?” Hecadoth cast him a bemused look, while Laymia regarded him with a strange sort of concerned curiosity. Naga ignored them.

“What do you mean?” Hecadoth asked. 

“I mean, you asking to make sure I wanted the contract back in my room, and then Jabberwock letting me have input into the other personal contracts. Why aren’t you just making the contract, if it’s so convenient?” Hecadoth snorted, and Laymia gave a light laugh. Naga continued to ignore them.

“I thought you were asking a serious question. Don’t mess around, kid,” the tallest demon said, losing interest in Furuichi’s attempt at conversation.

“Wait! I’m serious. Why not just force it, like you were gonna do to Kunieda-senpai?" 

“Eh? I was just fucking around with your little friend. It wouldn’t have worked for a legitimate contract if I had just taken that girl’s blood. It would have given me a minor, temporary power boost at best.”

“Any contract worth talking about is consensual,” Naga interjected finally. He came to a stop as they approached a staircase. “And this is as far as I’m going.” Without further acknowledgement, the blue-haired demon broke off from the group and disappeared up the stone steps. 

“Ah, this is where I leave you as well. The quarters of the pillar Barons are all on the third floor of the 34th Headquarters, if you ever need to find someone. The fourth floor has Behemoth and Jabberwock’s suites, as well as the war room and library. The pillar General quarters are on the second floor. Grunt pillars have barracks on the first basement level, east wing, and the guest rooms are in the north wing. I’ll leave the tour of the first floor to Hecadoth when he picks you up tomorrow morning _promptly at seven_ for breakfast.” Laymia’s smile was gentle and sweet and gave absolutely room for disobedience, the threat of casual disembowelment lurking behind narrowed grass-green eyes 

She waved goodbye and started to follow Naga up the stairs, but paused halfway and turned back. “Oh, and Hecadoth, find some appropriate clothes for our contractor, hmm?" 

Hecadoth and Furuichi watched her blankly as she continued on her way, united in a vague sensation of fear-induced paralysis. Hecadoth was the first to recover.

“Shit. Looks like I’m sharing you with some scary bastards,” he sighed, eyeing the teen askance.

“Please don’t phrase it like that,” Furuichi said weakly. He stumbled and squawked when the demon pressed a large hand against his shoulder blades to direct him towards the downward staircase.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, here’s Furuichi’s Trip to Hell, pt 1. The next part is on its way.
> 
> A note about the rankings: I’ve seen the pillar squad ranked in several different ways based on the various translations, but for consistency’s sake I’m going to go with the system used by the Beelzebub Wiki, where the Barons report to the Commander (Jabberwock) and the Generals report to the Barons.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed it!


	6. Grindstone

_Fainor is speaking. Furuichi cannot understand the words, but it is the only sound present. The voice is muddied and vague, stifled, as though coming from the next room over, even though Furuichi is seeing him clearly. He is strange and tall and starkly white, surrounded by seven others who look like him and wear the same pale armor._

_They stand together around a heavy wooden table covered in maps. The walls are made of cured animal skins, and Furuichi realizes they are in a tent when an arctic breeze slices through a hanging, passes through him and ruffles the hair of the strange beings before him._

_One of the others opens his mouth to interject, but Furuichi hears no words. The one he somehow knows is called Fainor responds with incomprehensible syllables that seem to enrage the other. He responds angrily, silently, and the tone of Fainor’s next words are condescending enough that the other charges forward and grips his collar…_

_And suddenly it is Furuichi the other is grabbing, shaking him, snarling silently. His eerie pale eyes burn with wounded pride, and his grip tightens on Furuichi’s collar…_

 

And there was a hand on his shoulder, shaking him. Furuichi’s eyes shot open and he jolted up, barely missing colliding with Hecadoth. The demon backed off, eyeing him with something that was not quite wariness.

“…You were pretty deeply asleep, Furuichi,” he said. Furuichi grunted, disoriented. He glanced around, trying to take stock of his surroundings, but the dark stone walls with their graying, threadbare tapestries offered no intimation. It was only when he shifted and the bed he was on let out a series of horrific creaks that Furuichi recalled that he was in a dilapidated spare room in the basement of a demon squadron’s headquarters.

He groaned and tried to flop back into bed, but a large hand gripped his ankle through the dusty sheet covering him and dragged Furuichi – sheets and all – off the bed and onto the cold floor. He grunted at the impact, curled up, and tried to make himself comfortable on the hard stone.

“Go ‘way. Fuck off. ‘M sleeping,” he muttered. He could practically hear Hecadoth’s eyebrow twitching in irritation, and could not contain his yelp as a booted foot connected with his ribs.

“Get up, you little brat. Don’t forget that Laymia’s expecting us for breakfast at 7:30,” he growled. Ah. Yes. That changed things. With a tremendous, put-upon sigh, Furuichi dragged himself up, pulling the blankets with him. He may not have been terminally freezing any longer, but it was still ridiculously cold in the early morning on a stone basement floor when he was naked from the waist up.

Furuichi had just opened his mouth to begin to ask about a new shirt when a bundle of stiff cloth collided with his face. He stumbled back against the bedpost, but successfully caught the cloth before it fell to the ground. Blinking, he examined the bundle. It looked like a replica of the uniform worn by Pillar Barons and Generals, a dark green outfit with a tie and black coat. Shuffling the clothes in his hands to begin dressing, something else caught his eye – a splash of discoloration across the back of his hand.

It had been dark and he had been exhausted the night before, but now that he was rested, the crimson sigil decorating the back of his right hand glared at him. Jabberwock’s mark: four curved, inward facing claws arranged in a circle. He dragged his gaze up his right arm and stopped at the joint where it connected to his shoulder, where Naga had imprinted on his pale skin a pair of intertwined, undulating lines circling a seven-pronged star in pale sky blue. His eyes skittered over to his left bicep, where Laymia had placed her sigil, and saw six small ovals arranged in a diamond pattern in various shades of green.

They all looked like gang tattoos. His mother was going to kill him. And then skin him, so as not to offend his ancestors’ eyes.

Sighing despondently, he slipped into the stiff outfit, which fit him surprisingly well. There must have been a demon exactly his size somewhere around. Furuchi wondered about that out loud, but Hecadoth just gave him an exasperated look and rolled his eyes, his whole head shifting with the exaggerated motion. Furuichi directed a frustrated scowl at the demon, about to retort, when his attention was diverted.

He had noticed before, peripherally, that a bunch of demons had ridiculous fin ears sticking out of the sides of their heads, which would have been comical, but for the fact that Furuichi knew they’d have slaughtered him if he’d laughed. Now, though, maybe he had some leeway

“Hey Hecadoth.” The demon grunted. Furuichi took that as permission to continue.

“Why do some of you have normal ears and some of you have weird fin ears?

“My ears are perfectly normal, kid, got it?” Hecadoth growled. “It’s a racial difference. In-land versus coastal.”

“But, Laymia has those fin ears, but Lamia doesn’t."

“Laymia took up with an in-land demon. Ear shape isn’t the kind of thing that comes out half-and-half, it’s always one or the other. Anyway, I don’t know why you’re so caught up on them, humans have different shaped ears, too.”

“I guess? I mean, the differences aren’t so extreme you could call them a racial trait, though.”

“Yours seem pretty different to any human ears I’ve seen before.”

“…What?” Furuichi froze in the act of slipping on one large black boot.

“Your ears. I haven’t seen other humans with an ear shape like that. Is your race different?”

“What the hell are you talking about? There’s nothing wrong with my ears!” he cried, reaching up to feel around under his hair. He froze as his fingers brushed over the shells.

“I– mirror, mirror please!” he yelped, pushing past the demon and charging back into the bathroom. He brushed his hair back and stared at his reflection, fingers rubbing and pulling at the sharp, elongated shapes. He vaguely recalled waking in the middle of the night a couple of weeks ago with swollen, inflamed ears, and knew instantly that this was the result.

“Oh god,” he said weakly.

“So I’m guessing those aren’t normal?” Hecadoth said, stepping into the bathroom and leaning against the doorframe.

“No, no they’re really fucking not.”

“Huh. New addition?” Despite the seemingly concerned question, Hecadoth’s tone and posture were indolent and bored as he picked at a scuff on the bathroom door. Furuichi answered him anyway.

“Yeah. I – fuck. They weren’t there _yesterday_. Shit.”

As Furuichi stared at his new reflection, his thoughts flitted back to his most recent dream. Had those pale beings had ears like this? He had been less focused on minor details, more concerned with the inaudible conversation. The only thing he could of them physically was _pale_. Bleached skin, light eyes, bone-colored hair, made even starker by their silver armor.

Well, he already had the pale thing down. He desperately hoped there were no more imminent physical alterations in store for him, things he hadn’t been able to see in the dream, like extra nipples. He really hoped he wasn’t going to grow more nipples.

Hecadoth narrowed his eyes and stalked forward to poke one gloved finger at Furuichi’s left ear, but was obviously unimpressed, both by the appendage and by his contractor’s concern over it.

“Well, whatever. Come on, kid, we’re going to be late meeting with the commander for the unit contract,” Hecadoth said, pushing off the doorframe and walking away.

“Hey, can I ask something…?” Furuichi said tentatively, following behind his dour guide, fingers still tracing over the new shapes of his ears.

“You just did.” Furuichi frowned, and tried again.

“What’s the difference between the personal contracts and the mass unit contract?” Hecadoth eyed him askance.

“Why’re you just asking that now? You should have said something before if you didn’t know.” Furuichi shrugged helplessly.

“I dunno, I didn’t want to interrupt, or something,” he muttered. He neglected to mention that he hadn’t wanted to seem foolish, but Hecadoth seemed to catch on regardless.

The demon heaved a great sigh, then whipped around, gripped him by the shoulders, and lifted him bodily off the ground, to press him against the wall so that Furuichi was suspended at eye level. He leaned forward, face coming in close, so Furuichi could see nothing past the demon’s face and mane of thick black hair.

“Okay, what the hell is wrong with you? You were a cocky little bastard the last couple times you summoned me with those tissue contracts, so why are you so wimpy now?”

Furuichi frowned and glanced away. Oga had said something similar, and hearing it again rankled terribly. He had no interest in sharing his inner turmoil with this demon, however.

“I haven’t been sleeping well lately. I guess it’s been taking a toll on my mental state,” he half-lied sheepishly, tugging at his collar. Hecadoth was blatantly not fooled.

“How about you tell me why you haven’t been sleeping.” It wasn’t a suggestion, or a question.

Furuichi eyed the demon balefully, recognizing the look and tone as similar to the one Oga took when he was utterly determined to get his way. The way the corner of Hecadoth’s mouth was beginning to curl into a frustrated snarl told Furuichi that the consequences would not be pleasant if he did not concede.

He conceded.

“…Weird dreams,” he admitted finally. He refused to confess to _nightmares_ , however – he had some pride left. “Mammon said they’re memories of a past life. I’m remembering because my soul got scrambled up by Lucifer."

“So those are the ‘supernatural issues’ you mentioned, huh?” Hecadoth said, half to himself. He lowered Furuichi back to the floor and shifted back, crossing his arms. His eyes narrowed suddenly, a contemplative look overtaking his face.

“What’s the mental state like of your former self in those dreams?” Hecadoth asked.

Furuichi needed no time at all to consider. “Depressed, hopeless, guilty. I survived losing a major war, and it seems like life was really shitty after that.”

“Sounds like the predominant mental state of your past self is bleeding into your current self,” the demon sighed, ruffling a hand through his long, coarse hair. “Well, I’m no doctor, but it makes sense that you’ll keep feeling shitty until you stop having those dreams. I think they’ll probably stop affecting you so much now that you’ve established formal contracts with us. Access to our demonic power will regulate your own fluctuating energies and–”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve gotten the speech already,” Furuichi snarked. Hecadoth scowled and cuffed him on the head.

“Anyway, I’ll look around, see if there’s a demon in the squad that’s had the same thing happen, see if they’ve got any input.”

“That would be me,” a soft voice murmured from behind them. They both jumped, startled, and looked towards the door to see Laymia regarding them coldly.

“I have experience with integrating the wisdom of a past life into your current one. And to answer your previous question, the energy exchanged in personal contracts amplifies a demon’s power. Those of us with whom you formed personal contracts experienced a significant power boost, so of course we were all eager. Those who are simply a part of the unit contract will only be able to use the contract bond as an anchor to ease dimensional travel.

“But I have a question _I_ would like to ask _you_. Why are you late, Furuichi, Hecadoth?” the demoness asked lightly, her sweet, sweet smile a thin veneer over the slasher aura coiling around her.

“E-existential crisis, ma’am!” Furuichi yelped, shifting to hide behind Hecadoth. It was his fault they were late, anyway.

“Playing therapist to his existential crisis,” Hecadoth drawled, jerking his head at Furuichi. There was a barely distinguishable tremor in his voice as he warily eyed his superior.

“…I’ve heard worse excuses, I suppose. Don’t let it happen again, boys,” she said, turning on her heel and leaving the room. They hastened after her.

“After breakfast you will receive the unit contract, and then we’ll be meeting with Jabberwock and Naga to discuss your training,” the baron said matter-of-factly, striding down the hall and up the stairs to the ground floor.

“What training?”

Laymia looked back at Furuichi, startled. “Well, you can’t expect to be able to harness our powers when your body is so weak. At the very least we need to get you some weapons training and work on your reflexes. It would have been nice if you were strong like the Prince’s contractor, but, well…”

“You really are average in every way except resilience,” Hecadoth sighed.

“Well, perhaps not _every_ way. Lamia has referred to you as Ishiyama’s General, the charismatic tactician behind the Prince’s army of delinquent supplicants.”

“…I’ve been called that, I guess. Not sure how true it is.”

“You were very sure it was true a month ago when we fought Lucifer together. In fact, I’m pretty sure you used the words, ‘I’m the brains of this operation,’” Hecadoth snorted. “Lame, but accurate.”

Laymia glanced at him sharply. “You’ve undergone a sudden personality change?”

“A little?” Furuichi said weakly. “It’s not a personality change, I don’t think. I’m just…dealing with things I haven’t had to before.”

“You’re referring to the memories you’re receiving? If you don’t mind, I’d like to talk with you about that later. As I said earlier, I know how stressful it is to incorporate the memories of a past life.”

Furuichi gave a half-hearted shrug of agreement, not exactly eager to share. He was saved from having to verbalize a response when they reached the mess hall.

He walked in, expecting a similar set up to the school cafeteria, and froze.

“Wha-what the hell is _this_?” he screeched, staring around the room. “It’s an _exact replica_ of that shitty diner two blocks down!” He gaped, taking in the cheesy wood-panel wallpaper and cracked red vinyl booth seats.

“Heh~ You like our sweet digs, Furuichi?” Agiel cooed, sweeping up next to him and pulling him into a warm, bosomy headlock. “We had our monthly pillar luncheon in that place in your home town a few times, and liked it so much we remodeled our mess hall to look like it!”

 _You guys liked that shitty 50s throw-back that much?!_ He screeched internally. He startled when he received a response.

 _Well, Lord En liked it that much,_ came Hecadoth’s terrifically flat voice.

_Ah._

_There are pinball machines over by that wall, you see?_

_Yes. I see._

 

* * *

 

The formation of the unit contract was utterly without fanfare, and was utterly horrifying. Furuichi had been attempting to enjoy his breakfast soup – it had originally been some type of thick porridge, but was so tremendously spicy that Furuichi had needed to water it down in order to eat it – when Jabberwock had appeared behind him like some sort of monstrous, psychopathic murder-cat, pulled up his sleeve, dug a claw into his forearm, and _poured a vial of blood into the open wound_. Furuichi had stared, frozen, disgust overwhelming his senses to the extent that he did not even notice the surge of power that accompanied the contract formation.

The rivulets of crimson streaming across his arm had _twisted,_ then, coiling back on themselves and drying into a pattern of lines centered around the small, deep cut Jabberwock had given him. Furuichi squinted bemusedly, before the pattern became clear – three ‘X’s, an ‘I’, and a ‘V’ imprinted in a gothic, spiky font. '34,' in Roman numerals. It made sense, but now Furuichi would never be able to wear short sleeves anywhere but at school, where tattoos were considered badass in a good way, rather than delinquent in the bad sort of way that would keep people from hiring him.

“All right kid, here’s how this is gonna work,” Jabberwock barked. Furuichi flinched to attention, struggling to remain upright on the bench as the demon commander’s sheer _presence_ bore down on him painfully.

“The fact is, you’re fucking pathetic right now. These contracts don’t work the way those tissues worked, so we can’t possess you and augment your body. That means that when we fight, you’ll have to be able to _at the very fucking least_ run and dodge so we don’t have to be distracted trying to protect you. I don’t really give a shit _how_ you make that happen, but _I expect you to make it happen_. Got that?”

The demon commander’s nasty sneer encompassed Furuichi as well as the two demons beside him. Laymia and Hecadoth gave tight nods of assent, and Jabberwock stalked off after stealing Furuichi’s breakfast, his suffocatingly thick miasma of power trailing after him. Furuichi was not sorry to see either one go.

And then he was seeing the ceiling, because something had latched onto the back collar of his black pillar overcoat and hauled him to the ground. He squawked in protest and twisted around to see Hecadoth on the other end of the cloth.

“The boss says it’s time to train, so it’s time to train,” the demon said blandly, as though he was enjoying a quiet stroll through a park, rather than dragging a teenager across a sticky cafeteria floor.

“I’m sorry, Furuichi,” Laymia smiled apologetically from the side. “But you walk so painfully slow, it’s easier this way.”

“No, seriously, let me walk, I’m getting butt burn!”

Furuichi couldn’t find total fault with the arrangement, however, because he had just been dragged past a table housing Agiel and several other female demons. It was a nice view, especially from the floor.

But then he suddenly _could_ find total fault with the arrangement, because something fuzzy and green and slimy had just adhered itself to his left thigh.

“Oh Jesus, what did you just drag me through…?”

“I’ll drag you through the bathroom next if you don’t stop spouting that fucking blasphemy.”

Furuichi wisely decided to feign contentment at that point.

“So…about this training. You guys aren’t making me go back to Vlad’s Haunt for, like, survival training or something, right?” he asked hopefully, eagerly slipping into memories of that excursion to avoid thinking about the tacky black goo he had just inadvertently dragged his hand through.

“Are you fucking crazy?”

“What do you mean ‘back’?”

The exclamations came at the same time from his two contractees and Furuichi glanced up, surprised by the vehement reaction.

“Er. There was an incident a few months ago where Oga and I – and Beel – got stranded in Vlad’s Haunt. We took out this big group of thieves while we were there. Um, I’m surprised you didn’t know about it, Laymia. Lamia was there with us.”

“…No. I’m afraid my daughter did not deem fit to share with me her escapades in the single most perilous death trap in Hell.”

“Well shit, this makes it easier. Guess you’re not too much of a wimp if made it through that place, even if you had the Prince there with you,” Hecadoth laughed.

“Well, you must not have had too much trouble with Lamia there. She would have known to find a Yople and explain the situation.”

Furuichi coughed uncomfortably, recalling one of the few instances where a sucker punch from Oga was not, actually, helpful. “Right, that’s…that’s exactly what happened.”

And then, “Oh shit, stairs, Hecadoth, STAIRS!”

 

* * *

 

Furuichi gingerly rocked back against the stone wall, letting the cold seep through his clothes and ease the throbbing bruises on his back. The trip had been less than pleasant, particularly once they had left the more well-travelled areas of the base, where the stone floors, worn down by countless foot traffic, and been smoother.

Their small, bizarre procession had ended in a starkly empty training hall, notable only for its entirely stone construction and the numerous deep, discolored scars cut into the walls. Against the wall opposite the door stood Naga, looking small as he leaned back against a deep gouge in the stone thrice his height.

Furuichi sighed and pushed off his wall by the door, stepping further into the room to speak with his contractee, but stopped and glanced back as he realized there were no footsteps following behind him.

“Er, wait, where–?” he stuttered as Hecadoth and Laymia abruptly about-faced as soon as he was stood in the middle of the hall.

“We’ve got other responsibilities. You’ll be fine with Naga until _our_ session,” Hecadoth said blandly over his shoulder as he made his way out of the room. Laymia gave him an encouraging smile and a cute little wave, before she, too, departed.

Across the hall, the small blue-haired pillar baron was eyeing him indifferently. Furuichi rankled a bit at the unimpressed gaze, but was far too used to having such looks directed at him to vocalize any displeasure. Instead, he just grinned sheepishly and rubbed at the back of his head nervously.

“Sooo… Where do we start?”

Naga knelt and pressed his hands to the ground, closing his eyes and murmuring for a moment, before a vortex of water whipped up around him. It seemed immense and terrifying at first glance, but after a moment Furuichi could tell how underpowered it truly was – the wide spread made the vortex look treacherous and lethal, but the total volume of water was quite low, judging by the way the thin fluid walls wavered and broke, leaving the small demon clearly visible in the middle of it. Naga stood and, with a careless wave of his hand, the vortex swirled off to the side and began looping and flowing through the air, as though contained in an invisible glass sphere.

“Freeze this,” he ordered. Furuichi stared blankly.

“Um. Okay, but here’s the thing: I’m not exactly sure how this works. And by that I mean there’s approximately an equal chance of nothing happening at all, and everyone getting skewered by giant icicles. So you might want to step back. Or…maybe call this whole thing off? That last one sounds goo–"

“ _Freeze it._ ”

Furuichi yelped at the tone and sudden pressure of demonic power, bringing pricks of cold sweat to his temples. He gulped nervously, then took a deep, fortifying breath and scrunched his eyes closed, trying to recall the few previous times the ice had appeared.

The first and last times he was asleep, and the second time he was having a panic attack.

That was approximately zero help.

He let his eyes drift open again and tried to look past where Naga was scowling at him, to where the water was still swirling off to the demon’s right. He honestly had no idea what to do with it.

He walked up to the swirling sphere and rubbed his chin contemplatively, before extending a tentative finger to poke at the vortex.

“gaAHH–!”

It promptly exploded and left him flat on his back, gasping for breath, and soaking wet. Naga watched on, his expression too bland to be innocent.

“You…! You let it go on purpose!”

“Consider it incentive. Do better next time, or who knows what else might happen.”

Seven more times. Seven more times, just as Furuichi approached Naga’s conjured water sphere, the thing had exploded violently, with increasing intensity. Most recently, he had been blasted halfway across the training hall by the explosion. By this point his bruises had bruises, and it was a struggle to stand upright with the entirety of the heavy pillar uniform soaked completely through. He angrily flicked his sopping bangs out of his eyes and tore off his overcoat, throwing to the ground in an aggravated huff. He was started to get very pissed off.

“Damn it, how do you expect me to do anything when you don’t give me the _fucking chance_!” he snarled at demon, his frustration overwhelming his normal cautionary attitude towards anything stronger than himself.

“You are useless to us in combat if you can’t think on your feet and react immediately. This ice of yours must be _instinctual_!”

On the last word, Naga thrust his hand outwards fiercely, and a slender, torrential dragon burst forth towards the teenager, coiling through the air. And Furuichi – angry and frustrated and _so fucking done with this shit_ – stood his ground.

He waited until the dragon was mere feet away before flinging up his hands, his entire body thrumming with the command _Freeze it_.

A massive burst of swirling ice particles erupted from between his spread hands, a violent cloud easily twice his height that collided spectacularly with Naga’s dragon and powered through it, freezing the fluid beast and causing ice shards to explode outwards. The ice cloud continued on, only marginally slowed by its collision with the dragon, and met its end at Naga’s outstretched hand with a shriek.

Furuichi stared. Naga stared back, his eyes barely visible under the icicles hanging from his eyebrows.

“Uhh…oops?”

 

* * *

 

“Alright, got a weapon preference?”

Mere hours later, after the disaster that was trying to produce ice on command, Furuichi had been hauled off by Hecadoth for more alleged ‘training.’ His progress after the exploding ice burst had been minimal, having exhausted himself on that one attempt, and he had spent the rest of the session trying to dodge Naga’s idea of incentive, which had become markedly more treacherous after receiving an ice facial.

Now, when all he wanted was to rest his aching body, he was instead planted in the middle of a large, cluttered training hall, different from the one he had worked with Naga in – which had been utterly bare – but alike in the stone disposition.

Furuichi briefly contemplated asking why it was necessary for him to learn how to use a weapon when he was contracted with four perfectly good demons capable of fighting for him, but he did not think the question would be well received. Instead, he took a moment to examine the weapon racks around the room, interspersed with battered and burned training dummies.

There were displays of normal weapons like swords and spears, axes large and small, hammers and maces and bows and arrows. But there were also several racks of strange hybrid weapons that frankly scared the shit out of him, great monstrous things built of chains and razor sharp edges. His eyes tracked back to the spears. There were halberds and javelins, pikes and glaives, lethal and gleaming. They drew his attention and called to him in a way that made him think of snowy mountain passes and cold gray skies.

“Spears. They’re what I used before,” he murmured absently, eyes raking over the assorted weapons.

“Excellent. We’ve lucked out, they happen to be my specialty,” Hecadoth smirked, walking over to the display to pick up an eight-foot glaive with a vicious-looking spiked blade. Furuichi stepped up next to him and after some consideration, selected a shorter, broad-bladed boar spear. Hecadoth eyed him speculatively.

“That’s a good choice for you. Simple, and easily manipulated.”

Furuichi nodded, shifting his grip and hefting the weapon experimentally. “The shaft is a good weight for me, and the head isn’t so heavy that I’ll have to put a lot of effort into compensating.”

Hecadoth nodded in approval. “Good instincts.”

“Just recently. Just since the dreams started.”

“So that means you have a general idea of what to do?”

“Um, I guess? I just sort of moved on my own the last time…” Furuichi trailed off as he continued to examine his chosen weapon. He twisted it in his hands, adjusting to the feel of it, and gave a few experimental jabs and swipes.

“Good. Prepare yourself, kid.”

“Wait, wha– SHIT!” the teenager screeched as he arced his body backwards to evade Hecadoth’s sudden jab.

“Hey!” Jab to the face, bend over backwards. “Aren’t you supposed to teach me first?!” Swipe to the hip, dodge to the left. “Fuck, would you _wait_!”

“You ever heard the phrase ‘baptism by fire?”

Furuichi barely had time to balk at irony of a demon employing an idiom related to anything holy before Hecadoth was moving, a blur of cruel black demonic energy and wild hair, bearing down on him with a viciously gleaming, serrated blade. He stumbled backwards into a vague approximation of a defensive stance and tried to stop his knees from quaking. He thought he saw Hecadoth roll his eyes before the general was upon him, glaive descending towards his head.

And his focus narrowed to that single point, eyes drawn by the light reflecting off the dark metal. Furuichi’s hands shifted along the spear, his left sliding to the base and thrusting out while the right affixed itself just below the blade and pulled backwards towards his chest, angling the weapon to meet Hecadoth’s glaive on the downward stroke. He might have even caught the strike, too, if it weren’t for the fact that his opponent was a demon.

His previously dislocated arm gave out immediately upon impact with a disturbingly visceral tearing sound, as Hecadoth’s weapon wrenched the smaller one backwards and to the side. Any attempt at stable defense utterly lost, Furuichi let himself collapse into a roll to avoid Hecadoth’s glaive as it skittered down the blade of Furuichi’s spear and sliced through the wooden shaft just below the head.

Hecadoth’s boot glanced off his temple as the demon tried to dance around Furuichi’s fallen, gasping form, but the teen barely felt the knock to his head as he was overwhelmed with pain from his shoulder. His ears were buzzing with white noise and the sound of his own gasping, and vision began to tunnel and go fuzzy.

“Ah shit,” he heard Hecadoth mutter, just before darkness claimed his senses.

 

* * *

 

When Furuichi next awakened, he did not know where he was. Or more accurately, he did not know what part of the pillar base he was in. The stone ceiling above him was distinct in that he’d never seen anything like it anywhere but in the base, but was ubiquitous in that every room was made of exactly that same stone. He shifted a bit and the bed beneath him gave off a terrifying squeal of creaks and groans.

 _Ah. I’m back in my room_.

Furuichi tried to lift himself up to regain his bearings, but a jolt of excruciating pain from his right shoulder had him collapsing back into the dusty mattress with a groan. He decided it was perfectly acceptable to regain his bearings while lying down.

He couldn’t have said for how long he’d been laying there, mulling over recollections of the travesty that had been his day, when a line of distinct, even footsteps made themselves aware, their owner stopping just outside his door before continuing in

The bed-ridden contractor glanced up to greet his visitor, his attempt at a welcoming grin freezing on his face. He was barely aware of another set of footsteps following.

_Black-haired Fabio is in my room._

“What the hell are you staring at?” Fabio sneered.

“Meet Dr. Forcas, Furuichi,” Hecadoth said. Furuichi glanced away from the pale, dark-haired Adonis and saw his contracted demon leaning against the doorway, before said demon’s introduction sank in.

“Y-you’re Dr. Forcas?!”

“Why’re you so surprised, kid?” That probably had something to do with the strong jaw, chiseled cheekbones, mysterious scars, and long, elegant mass of silky hair.

“Ah, well, I guess I’m just used to seeing you as a little blue blob,” Furuichi laughed sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head. Inwardly, he was seething. _Damn, this bastard is seriously good-looking! Die, you shitty walking shampoo commercial!_

Hecadoth let out a muffled snicker from the other side of the room. _Shut up, you traitor_ , Furuichi hissed mentally.

“Well, obviously I’m much greater than that in reality,” Forcas sniffed pretentiously. “You know, you should be quite honored. I’ve never had to deal with a peasant so frequently as I’ve had to with _you_ ,” he continued, ripping Furuichi’s sheet away and hauling the teen upright against the headboard by his collar.

“Now give me your arm so we can get this over with.” The doctor did not wait for Furuichi to move his arm closer; he simply reached out and grabbed the limb, tugging roughly to bring it closer. Furuichi yelped painfully.

“Hmm,” the demons mused, poking at his shoulder with a faintly glowing finger. “Torn rotator cuff. You injured this shoulder before?”

“D-dislocated a little while back,” he cringed. The faint glow from the finger spread out to Forcas’ entire hand, which clamped down viciously tight on Furuichi’s shoulder. The boy choked out a pained groan as that strange light seeped into his flesh and set it to itching so strong it felt like burning.

And then it was over, and with the retreat of the itching followed the bone-deep ache in shoulder. Even the vague irritation that had remained after dislocating the shoulder previously was gone. Furuichi rotated the limb in awe, breaking into a broad smile.

“Thanks, Dr. Fab– er, Forcas,” he grinned.

“Hmph. Next time you’re injured, at least make it something interesting to heal,” he said, reaching up to peel away the bandage on Furuichi’s cheek that covered the nearly-healed burn. A touch of a glowing finger brushed away the ache, and though Furuichi could not see it, he was willing to bet the faint blister-scars had been washed away as well.

“Don’t pull this shit with him again, Hecadoth. The kid’s too weak for the normal recruit training. He’ll just keep injuring himself, with his mind and instincts working at a faster pace than his body can keep up with. It would be best to stick with basic workouts, focusing on increasing overall speed, strength, and endurance.”

“Yeah, we figured. Laymia thinks we should just work on his speed and dodging from now on.”

“That would be best. Later, kid,” the doctor offered with a casual wave as he left the room.

“So does that mean you’re not gonna try to stab me anymore?” Furuichi asked hopefully.

“Nope. It just means I’m not gonna expect you to retaliate. Your training with Naga will remain the same, though.”

 

* * *

 

The second full day in hell, Furuichi woke up to a bedroom painted white and glistening with hoar frost. He couldn’t remember if he had dreamed or not, but his cheeks felt strange and stiff, and when he reached up to touch them, his fingertips encountered frozen tear tracks. He must have dreamed, then. He was glad he didn’t remember.

Unfortunately, his moment of forgotten emotional upheaval did not go unnoticed – Hecadoth had arrived to awaken him again, and frowned at the state of his cheeks.

“Well, damn. We weren’t that mean to you yesterday,” he grumbled awkwardly.

“No, this is…I’m not really sure what this is. I woke up this way,” Furuichi returned helplessly as he struggled to put on his uniform.

“More past life shit, huh? Well, you and I aren’t training today, you’ll be with Laymia in the afternoon instead, after your morning session with Naga. You can talk to her then.”

 _But I don’t want to talk to her!_ Inner Furuichi whined.

 _Too fucking bad_ , Hecadoth snorted. This whole lack of mental privacy thing was seriously starting to get old.

“It ain’t that hard to keep your thoughts to yourself, kid. I manage just fine. It just takes practice. In fact, I recommend practice. I’m getting sick of hearing your whiny pubescent voice in my head.”

  _Asshole._

_Now you’re getting the hang of it._

Furuichi huffed a bit, taking advantage of his status as an adolescent to pout unashamedly, then broke into a grin when he caught a genuine snicker from Hecadoth.

By the time he met Naga in the same training hall as the day before, Furuichi’s grin had died a swift, painful death, which had a lot to do with the way his horrifically spicy breakfast had swollen his lips shut, but had even more to do with the way he had been flattened and soaked with a miniature geyser the second he walked through the door.

“God _dam_ –glurORP,” Furuichi said.

“Incentive,” Naga reminded.

“FUCK YOUR INCENT _pfffphbbt,_ ” Furuichi said.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch th _grrssst_.”

Furuichi snickered from his place on the floor, unapologetically smug at having been able to freeze the thin layer of water coating the floor between himself and the demon. He was _so_ going to set Naga’s surprised hiss at slipping and falling as his new text alert tone.

Furuichi couldn’t even bring himself to regret his prank when the small baron surged upwards in a five-foot tall bundle of righteous fury and promptly spent the rest of the training session gleefully knocking Furuichi on his ass.

 

* * *

 

“…This whole training thing doesn’t seem to be working,” Furuichi huffed into his pillow later that afternoon. His back and ass were too bruised and sore for him to lie prone, so instead he was stretched supine across his dusty dungeon bed. Comfortably seated in a cushy armchair beside him, Laymia gave a soft laugh.

“Well, it’s only been two days. Let’s not give up hope!”

“Yeah, but I have to go home tonight so I can go to school tomorrow. Even if I train every weekend, I don’t think I’ll be making much progress.”

“We won’t know until we try!” she assured, unforgivably chipper at his expense. “But let’s not worry about that now. We’re here to figure out how we can ease the incorporation of your old self into your current self. Why don’t you tell me about your dreams?”

“Why do you have a note pad?"

“Oh, don’t worry about that, it’s just to keep track of your…issues.”

“Oh my god, I don’t need a therapist.”

“It’s alright, I have degree in psychology! I printed it out just last night.”

Furuichi stared. Laymia stared back at him, her gentle smile oozing expectation.

“Do you have any questions you’d like to ask?” she prompted, after Furuichi had done nothing but remain petulantly silent. He sighed finally, and resigned himself to what was gearing up to be an incredibly uncomfortable conversation. He turned his face back into the pillow to think, and recalled something he’d been wondering about. He turned back to face her.

“Mammon said that this past life stuff happens when your soul gets damaged, or something, and then Hilda said that sometimes demons do it on purpose. Um, did you…?”

“It wasn’t an intentional injury,” Laymia sniffed, affronted. Then she paused for a moment, seeming to debate with herself, before continuing hesitantly. “My injury was caused by Jabberwock, when we were younger. We were childhood friends, you know, but he became wild and vicious as he aged. We were having a mock battle, and he decided to try out an idea for a new technique on me. It… it did me a lot of damage, and it was a very long time before I came out of the coma. Behemoth sent him away after that, and he only returned just before we made our move against Prince Beelzebub’s contractor, your friend.

“Well, I suppose I was lucky that all of the memories returned to me during that coma, rather than a confusing, piece-meal integration, like what you’re going through. It seems as though your past life is more real for you than it was for me, but I should be able to help you regardless.”

She finished with a gentle smile that softened her eyes and made Furuichi think more of harps and feathers than the pitchforks she should have evoked.

“I was fighting in a war. I was an officer of some kind, and I wasn’t human. Not a demon, either,” he added when he saw the demoness about to interject. She sat back with a contemplative frown.

“I don’t know what I was, but these ears,” he brushed back his hair from the side of his face, “are a hold-over from then. Any way, there was a war with some other race, I think, and we lost, and– and a lot of people died, on both sides. It was a _massacre_.” He went silent here, overwhelmed with visions of crimson snow and crumpled bodies and his glorious leader, the Snow Prince, as he slumped to the ground with a sword through his chest.

“Were you killed in the war, Furuichi?” Laymia questioned softly. “Is that why you’re having so much trouble, because of a traumatic death?”

“You make a horrible therapist,” he grumbled, and then felt guilty when he saw her face fall into stricken, abashed lines. He sighed and continued grudgingly. “No, I survived the war, was one of the few left in my contingent. I was involved in a campaign afterwards, though, trying to do as much damage to the enemy as possible. We iced villages and sunk ships and stuff, anything to hurt them for chasing us out of our home.”

“You _iced_ their villages? Not raided, or burned?” she prodded, recovered from his earlier chastisement.

“The ice stuff I’m having trouble with now is another hold-over, like my ears. We were really good at ice magic, I think. I don’t know much about that, though, or anything else about who we were. I’ve really only been having dreams about the war.”

Furuichi desperately wished it were the other way around. Oh, what he wouldn’t give to dream about everyday life, and to only conjecture about wartime.

“That war was likely the defining time in your past life,” Laymia concluded, a triumphant gleam in her green eyes. She leaned forward a bit, earnest and easy. “I imagine it’s very mentally taxing to not only dream about the war, but also about magic and races that don’t seem to have equivalents here. I imagine the integration itself is very stressful for your brain, which impacts your mood and behavior.”

“That wasn’t a problem for you?”

“Not to the same extent. My memories were of a more mundane life than yours, it seems, and one that held no surprises for this life. My greatest shocks and tragedies were losing my parents. I did not even have to see my former husband die, as I went first. I’m sorry, Furuichi. I had hoped to be able relate more closely to you, but…”

“No, it’s fine. It helps to talk about it, I guess,” he lied, sighing into his pillow. He hoped that if he just agreed with her, she would leave him alone. Her earnestness felt too much like pity.

Laymia shook her head. “No, it’s my job to help you with this, Furuichi. I _want_ to help you with this.” She paused and bit her lip, and Furuichi was just about to say that he really didn’t think anything _could_ be done when she looked up, eyes glittering determinedly.

“My transition was easy, probably because my coma kept me from awakening. Maybe we could do the same with you. Do you think it might help to force yourself to remember? To get it all over with sooner, rather than later? If we place you in an artificial coma, the memories might come all at once, when you can’t wake up from them. Dr. Forcas could pull you easily from an induced coma if you were needed conscious.”

That sounded beyond horrible. It sounded like the kind of treatment that would leave him catatonic with rage and fear for days, even weeks. He wanted desperately to deny her immediately, but his cursed strategic mind was already whirling with possibilities

Fuji was still out there. Furuichi knew almost nothing about him, but given the way others spoke about him, quietly and deferentially, he was considerably more dangerous than Takamiya or Nasu. If Oga needed him and he wasn’t up to the task, if he was plagued by nightmares again or had stunted his own potential by wallowing rather than acting, he would never forgive himself.

But who was to say Fuji didn’t attack while he was catatonic after the treatment? If he was catatonic after the treatment. If the coma even _worked_ , if it didn't make him even worse permanently.There were too many unknowns, and too many dangerous possibilities. It seemed a terrible gamble, but now that Laymia had laid it out for him, he knew he could not afford to postpone the decision for long.

“Give me a week to decide.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is not a single character in any fandom more fun to tease and torture than Furuichi, and no one can convince me otherwise. 
> 
> Now for Story Time, guys! If you’re familiar with the Elder Scrolls series, the majority of Furuichi’s history should be obvious by now, but if not, here’s the gist: in the past, Furuichi was a Snow Elf, or Falmer, an ancient race of extremely pale, highly cultured elves that had prodigious skill with frost magic, archery, and spearmanship. 
> 
> Tensions grew over a couple centuries following human incursion into a mountainous tundra area that was historically Snow Elf country, and the two races went to war over it. The war culminated in the Battle of Moesring, in the Moesring Pass of a small arctic island, where the Snow Elves were annihilated. The race’s greatest warrior, the Snow Prince, was killed there on the battlefield, which utterly wrecked morale and turned the tide of the battle. Remaining Snow Elves fled underground or were systematically hunted down. This occurred several millennia prior to any playable content, and the race, as it was, no longer exists in game.
> 
> I’ve set Furuichi in the role of a talented young field commander called Fainor, whose first major battle was at Moesring. He lost all of his friends and family to the war, but survived the battle and returned to the mainland, where he instigated a campaign of guerilla warfare against the victorious humans. He was killed several years into this campaign by a wolf.
> 
> If you have any questions about his past, let me know! Otherwise, I hope you enjoyed the chapter. Let me know if you spotted any errors; I tried to be thorough with editing, but it’s quite a long chapter, and I may have missed something.


	7. Respite

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Story Warnings: Some violence and strong language. Mentions of deceased OCs.
> 
> Disclaimer: If you recognize any names, terms, or concepts it's because they don't belong to me.

Furuichi's return to the human realm later that evening was heralded by a vague distortion in an alley three blocks down from his house and a hooting call from Agiel to drop by again soon. Besides her, only Laymia and Hecadoth had bothered to see him off he passed through a disturbingly Lovecraftian portal in the second basement level of Pillar Headquarters.

Furuichi was beyond glad to step back into the human world. His body ached from the ridiculous – and largely unsuccessful – training sessions the (his?) demons had put him through, and his final conversation with Laymia was still roiling around in his head, poisoning his thoughts and keeping him from peace. It vaguely reminded him of the disgusting muck he'd been dragged through on the floor of the cafeteria – a clingy morass of corruption that couldn't be cleansed or ignored.

 _Give me a week to decide, my ass_ , he berated himself. _More like give me a week to make my final arrangements, because offing myself would be easier than deciding!_

Furuichi kicked an empty soda bottle on the sidewalk in from of him and was unreasonably frustrated when it didn't fly as far as he wanted it to. He was tempted to go after it, but knew from attending a delinquent high school that that sort of escalation – _against a soda bottle!_ he thought, a touch hysterically – was a very slippery slope.

Furuichi forced himself to drop it, gave himself a shake and pressed on, feeling his hostility diminish as he stepped further from the portal to Hell. The air smelled different here, he thought, taking a deep breath. Staring up a familiar sky, Laymia's offer finally began to slip from the forefront of his thoughts. Problems that had seemed so monumental when surrounded by the Pillar Squad Headquarters' characteristic cold stone walls seemed much smaller now. No less intimidating, but maybe more manageable. Unfortunately, the reverse was also true – human problems that had barely graced his thoughts in Hell were niggling at him now that he was back home. Particularly, he was dreading the reactions to his weekend kidnapping.

He hoped his mother hadn't called the police. Furuichi wasn't the best liar, but he'd have to bullshit his way through an acceptable excuse if that were the case. He'd gone to Tokyo with friends, maybe, or spent the weekend at the beach and forgotten to tell anyone. He could probably bribe the delinquents to lie to the police about him. They might even make a game out of spinning the best tale.

But more than his family's reaction or dealing with the police, he worried about what Oga had been up to. His friend had been stupidly protective of him the past few weeks, and Furuichi hoped the guy hadn't gone on a rampage or something. Toujou wouldn't be happy if the school was broken again.

The sun was just setting as Furuichi came upon his house. Well, there weren't any cop cars out front. That was a good sign. And Furuichi silently mourned the loss of the days when a lack of cop cars was a normal thing, rather than a best-case scenario.

"Oh, Taka, welcome home!" Furuichi's mom called as he stepped in the door. "You're just in time for dinner."

Well. Good to know she hadn't been too worried, at least. A little concern over her first-born son's mysterious disappearance would have been nice, though.

"Er. You don't mind that I was gone?"

"Well, it would have been nice of you to say goodbye, but at least Tatsumi-kun was good enough to call and let us know that you were spending the weekend with him. I had no idea you boys were so interested in museums! I would have taken you into Tokyo myself, if I knew."

 _What_. Furuichi stared as his mother began chatting about the shopping trip she'd taken Honoka on. _Oga_ had covered for him? And so badly? He'd thought it strange that the teen had so easily accepted Furuichi's refusal to get a demon contract when they'd last talked about it, especially when they'd both been so worked up over it. It wasn't like Oga to just drop something without getting his way – unless he had something else planned. Like 'museum trips,' apparently.

" _That son of a bitch_ ," he hissed, knuckles turning white against the kitchen table.

"Mom! Taka-nii said a bad word!" Honoka whined. Furuichi began spluttering out denials. The sharp crack of a wooden spoon across his wrist told him his mother was blatantly unimpressed.

"Watch your mouth, son," Furuichi's dad grunted from the couch.

The next morning, Furuichi awoke raring for a fight. His dreams that night had been less upsetting than usual, detailing a desolate, ragged envoy of those strange beings Furuichi had once been as they trudged on weary legs through the mountains. He had watched from afar, as though through binoculars, distant but not unconnected. Frustration had built in him at seeing the beaten, hunched forms of the proud race and being unable to help.

That frustration, compounded with his anger at Oga from the night before, had him in a singularly unpleasant mood when Oga showed up in front of his house to walk to school.

"Yo, Furuichi," Oga called. Furuichi's eye twitched.

" _You_ ," he hissed, bounding up to his friend, full of righteous fury and shoving a righteously furious finger in the teen's chest. "You set _Behemoth's 34_ _th_ _Pillar Squad_ on me, you bastard!" Oga poked a finger in his ear and wiggled it around, the picture of boredom.

"No, I didn't."

"Don't lie!" he screeched, smacking his friend across the shoulder with his school bag. That Oga didn't retaliate spoke volumes. "You absolutely did!"

"Didn't."

"Did! You told Lamia to tell them, at the very least!"

"Well, you were being stubborn."

"So you had me _kidnapped_?! By the group of demons that was trying to _kill us all_ a few months ago?!"

Oga shrugged and waved a flippant hand at him. "No, it's fine, right? Beel's dad made them promise not to mess with us anymore." Furuichi gaped incredulously.

"You _knew_? Why didn't you tell me about that, goddamnit? How am I supposed to support you if you don't tell me what's going on!"

"Ah, I forgot."

Furuichi deflated. Internally, his mind was a violent storm of cursing and general frustration.

 _Stop projecting. You're giving me a headache from a different dimension_ , came Hecadoth's voice inside his head.

 _Stop peeping on adolescent boys' private thoughts, you pervert_ , Furuichi grumped half-heartedly.

Hecadoth's response was something akin to a sledgehammer connecting with his temple. Furuichi cursed audibly and clutched at his head, prompting a strange look from Oga.

_Since when can you do that?!_

_Since you started getting smart with me, you little punk._

Yeah, no. 'Getting smart' was practically Furuichi's calling card, like hell he was going to let someone deny him that. Inspired by Hecadoth's move and by the green-haired baby currently hitching a ride on his best friend's head beside him, Furuichi pictured Hecadoth being electrocuted with the same ease as speaking to him. He was gratified to receive a sharp yelp in response, and felt the demon's presence fade away in a profound sulk. Furuichi cackled loudly, prompting an even stranger look from Oga.

"The hell is going on with you?" Oga grunted, kicking his foot back and to the side to connect with Furuichi's knee. Furuichi gave a little half-jump to the side in an unsuccessful attempt at avoiding it.

"Just talking to Hecadoth. He's being an asshole," he said. This prompted the strangest look yet from Oga.

"You hallucinating, or some shit? There's no demons around here."

"It's our contract. He's in my head sometimes. We can talk, and stuff."

"Mm, that long-haired guy? The one who speared Hilda?" Despite the bland tone, Furuichi knew his friend well enough to pick up his vague disapproval. He nodded regardless. Oga grunted.

"Your choice, I guess. Anyone else?"

"Um, besides Hecadoth, I've got Naga, Laymia – you haven't met her, she's Lamia's mom – and Jabberwock for personal contracts. The whole squad has a weaker contract with me too, but it's nothing special."

Oga side-eyed him here, which would have been more piercing and intimidating if he didn't have a naked baby chewing on his ear and sticking a chubby finger up his nose at the same time.

"That's a lot. You up to it?"

Furuichi scowled at him mightily. "If you didn't think I'd be up for it, then maybe you shouldn't have _fucking volunteered me_."

Oga rolled his eyes. "Get over it, Idiot Furuichi. You're too–"

He was interrupted by a flurry of movement from beyond the school gate they had just come upon, and an obnoxious, screeching yell.

"Prepare yourself, Furuichi! You may have beaten us a few months ago, but we've improved by leaps and – "

"aCHOO! Ugh, ah, sorry guys, didn't notice you there. Don't worry, it'll thaw in a while," Furuichi said blandly, stepping past the MK-5 ice sculpture that now decorated the entrance of the building. If there was anything they were good for, it was relieving frustration.

Oga's eyebrows jerked upwards at the casual display of magic and gave him a considering look. He opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted again. His eye twitched dangerously.

"Oi, Furuichi," Kanzaki barked, stalking up to them with his face twisted into an ugly sneer. He was flanked on both sides by most of the Saints Crew. Only Himekawa was noticeably absent. "Oga said you spent the weekend with those Akumano fuckers. You transferring schools? Eh? You turning _traitor_?"

" _No_! I just went to get contracts with them," Furuichi said, backing away with his hands raised defensively.

"Contracts? Like _marriage_ contracts? _Plural_?" Hanazawa gasped dramatically. She gripped Tanimura's sleeve and gave a little bunny-hop of excitement. Kunieda sighed exasperatedly beside her. " _How scandalous!"_

"Heh, didn't know you had it in you, Furuichi," Toujou chuckled. "Hey, look, if you need catering, I've got this new job–"

"I'm not getting married!" he shrieked. " _Demon_ contracts! For power, nothing else!"

"Oho~ So what, you're packing, now? Let's see the marks, Furuichi," Kanzaki smirked.

Furuichi lifted his hand obligingly and waved it in the senior's face, displaying the evidence of Jabberwock's contract. "Here's one. I've got a few others on my arms."

"Haha, you look like a real delinquent now, Furuichi," Natsume laughed.

 _That's not a good thing!_ he cried in his mind.

"Whose contract is this, Furuichi?" Kunieda asked, eyeing the red mark pressed into the back of his hand.

"Um, this one is Jabberwock's. I've also got them for Hecadoth, Laymia, and Naga, and one for the whole squad, so that's 395 total."

There was a pause.

"Furu-pimp," Hanazawa whispered into the silence.

* * *

 Furuichi was still pouting hours later. There wasn't much to do in class at Ishiyama High besides brood and sleep, and he was surprisingly well rested despite the hectic weekend. Instead, he had spent the first half of the day dwelling on his – friends'? – teasing. Truthfully, the light mocking didn't bother him overmuch – it had lessened considerably since the Tissue Incident and wasn't mean-spirited the way it had been, but it was much more comfortable to brood over than the impending decision he had to make regarding the dream coma.

Furuichi brushed those thoughts aside as the bell rang, signaling the lunch break. He glanced over at his friend and snorted. He was fully convinced Oga had some sort of sixth sense regarding lunch; he had been sound asleep at his desk since sitting down hours ago, utterly dead to the world and to Baby Beel's fussing, but had stirred awake moments before the bell sounded.

"Ah, lunch, lunch, lunch~" Hanazawa sang to herself as she and Tanimura gathered their bags across the classroom.

"Oi, Furuichi. Spot me some cash," Oga drawled behind a yawn.

"Hell no. Eat your own foot."

"Heh. You forgot your wallet too?"

"No, shut up. I'm on a diet."

"Gotta look nice for all your new wifies and hubbies, Furuichi?" Hanazawa giggled as she approached. Tanimura murmured 'creepy' beside her and took a subtle step away from him.

"Ah! You…" Oga paused for a moment, trying to place their names. "You. Got any money?"

Hanazawa pouted. "What kind of gentleman asks ladies to buy lunch for them, huh?"

Oga and Furuichi just stopped and stared at her. "Since when do gentlemen go here?"

She grumbled a bit, but looked defeated. "Yeah, okay, point. But one thing each! From the vending machines! I'm not buying anything from the cafeteria for you."

Oga shrugged agreeably and led the way out into the hall. Furuichi followed after offering the girls a bright smile of gratitude. He tried to engage them in conversation along the way, but they were remarkably good at twisting every word he said into a private conversation between the two of them. Furuichi huffed, and turned his attention elsewhere.

"Hey, guys," Furuichi nodded to Akahoshi and Takamiya, who seemed to be in some quiet discussion by the vending machines. Akahoshi gave him a grin and a brief wave, but there was no noticeable response from Takamiya – not that he could see the teen's face, with his hair, lank and hanging, obscuring his features. Oga just grunted at them and shoved past to kick at the vending machine, a few coins from Hanazawa clutched in his hand.

"You're too forgiving, Furuichi," a deep voice muttered behind him. Furuichi turned to see Toujou having just emerged from a classroom with Kanzaki and Natsume, arms crossed over his chest and a vicious scowl darkening his features. "That little rat-bastard ripped out your heart, and you just say 'hello'?"

Furuichi blinked, startled by Toujou's vehemence on the matter. He hadn't noticed any particular animosity directed towards Takamiya by other Ishiyama students after Oga had so thoroughly shown him his place, but then he _had_ been rather absorbed in his own problems lately. And then he recalled Oga telling him about what he'd missed in the fight, how Toujou had appeared and seen Furuichi, apparently lifeless and sprawled in a puddle of blood.

It made sense to him now that Toujou might be less forgiving than the others, having actually seen what Takamiya and Lucifer were capable of. He grinned to himself a bit, happy with the senior's concern, but knew he had to clear up any misconceptions now before things got violent. He wasn't particularly thrilled with the coming admission, but the necessity was obvious.

"I don't hate Takamiya or Lucifer. They, um. They actually saved my life. Even though they took my soul." He paused to take in the flabbergasted looks. It seemed like no one could think of anything to say. Even Takamiya himself seemed too shocked to say anything, his jaw hanging down loosely. Furuichi swallowed down the lump in his throat before continuing.

"…I was dying even before Lucifer took my soul. When that Fallen Angels guy tort– er, beat the shit out me, he broke a couple ribs. They. Um. Pierced my lungs. I was half choking on blood the whole time I was fighting Takamiya," he shrugged uncomfortably, trying not to remember the wet, desperate gasping that had been his breathing, the taste of copper on his tongue thick and heady and nauseating, the searing pain as Hecadoth took command of his body to do battle with no regard for his condition.

He took a deep breath, marveling at the ease and painlessness of the motion, before continuing. "So when Lucifer took my soul, it gave Lamia a chance to repair my body while you guys tried to find the pieces, so I was healed when Mammon fixed me. If Lamia hadn't had that chance while my soul was split to heal my ribs and lungs, I would have died almost immediately after getting it back. Would have, you know, drowned in my blood."

There was utter silence in the hallway for a long moment, and then some terrible _oppression_ crushed down upon them, stealing away their breath. Slowly, darkly, Oga turned and headed back in the direction they'd come from, where the Fallen Angels were typically gathered in the east wing of building two.

Furuichi's eyes were pulled to a splash of crimson dripping from between Oga's fingers. Blood, drawn by his unforgiving grip on the forgotten coins. The crew watched, dazed and frozen, until the death knell of Oga's measured footsteps reached halfway down the hall before Kanzaki spoke up.

"Well, I've gotta go…do a thing," the senior said, his voice quiet and blank as he began to move down the hallway following Oga.

"Ah, me too," Toujou agreed, falling into step with the smaller teen. Furuichi had never seen the man so grave.

"Oh, are you guys going in this direction, too? I get the feeling something really… _interesting_ is about to happen," Natsume laughed softly, moving to pace the others.

"Hehe, yep! Heard there was corpse in this direction. I've never seen one before!" Hanazawa exclaimed.

"Idiot Paako, it's not a corpse. Yet."

"Guys, wait! You can't kill him, okay?" Furuichi cried, scrambling after them. He'd been hoping to discourage violence with the story, not instigate murder.

"Che, don't spout that bullshit. We're just returning a favor, you know?"

"No, seriously, what happened to the whole 'Ishiyama Solidarity' thing?" he said, moving in front of the procession to block them. "You can't beat him up, not with Fuji still out there. We can't show weakness at a time like this," Furuichi said firmly, meeting the eyes of each delinquent. They all shuffled their feet or glanced away, looking like pouting toddlers. _Murderous_ pouting toddlers.

"We've gotta pay him back somehow, Furuichi," Oga barked from the staircase. Furuichi was a bit surprised Oga had even stopped. He'd been half the length of the building away from them.

"No, we don't. Look, I'm not saying you have to be friends with the guy, cuz I sure as hell am _not_ , but he's still useful, you know? Big, strong guy like him, we can just allocate him to the front lines. He'd be perfect to spearhead an initial offensive against Fuji, if it comes to that," Furuichi said, falling into a contemplative mindset. He really could be a useful test subject for beginning to determine the extent of Fuji's abilities, and his position in their regimen as the very first to engage had absolutely nothing to do with the way he'd tortured Furuichi before, nope.

"…That kinda sounded. Like. Military-ish. And also sort of sadistic," Hanazawa hedged.

"As expected of our General! I approve," Natsume laughed.

Furuichi flushed and darted his eyes to the side. That was a very interesting wall, yep. "But do you guys get it? He's useful right now, so don't mess him up too badly, okay?"

"Heh. You heard him, guys. 'Not _too_ badly,'" Kanzaki crowed.

"He's allergic to peanuts," called a quiet voice from behind the pack. Takamiya. There was a cut of silence as the delinquents all glanced at each other, unsure whether to accept the morbid peace offering, unsure whether it was even his place to offer. Toujou stood silent, stony faced and unmoving.

"…That might be fun," Natsume said finally. There was some awkward muttering of agreement as the group moved to follow Oga while Takamiya slipped into the background, away from the gang. Toujou was the last to follow, still staring after Takamiya with an unreadable look on his face.

His sharp gaze cut suddenly to Furuichi, and the senior wordlessly dropped a heavy, calloused palm on his head, ruffling silver hair. Furuichi's knees almost gave out from the force of the motion, but he took the gesture in the spirit intended and offered what he hoped was a reassuring grin. The senior's face finally broke its stoicism as his lips quirked up a bit in answer, and broke into a short jog to catch up with the group. Furuichi leaned back against the vending machine and watched them go, torn between amusement and exasperation.

A low grumble broke him out of his musings, and Furuichi realized Hanazawa had never given him any money for the vending machine. He groaned and dropped his head into his hands, sinking to the floor, any good feelings washed away by his teenage hunger.

A nudge against his shoulder made him jerk his head up just in time for a bag of chips to fall into his lap. Furuichi barely kept himself from squealing with joy, simultaneously tearing the bag open and looking up to thank his savior. Leaning against the opposite wall was Himekawa, hands shoved into his pockets and shoulders hunched around his ears.

"Hm? Himekawa? What's up?" he said. The man was quiet for a moment, contemplative, not looking at Furuichi. He finally sighed and let his head knock back against the wall.

"Look, everyone knows you're too good for this shithole. You only came here because of Oga, right?"

Furuichi didn't answer, didn't have to. He wondered where this was going.

"Anyway, it'll be tough for you to get into a good university or find a good job or whatever, having come here. So, just, if there's something you ever want to do, or somewhere you ever want to go, let me know, and I'll make it happen."

Ah, that's where it was going. The apology. Furuichi hesitated, taken aback by the offer. That was a huge favor, particularly coming from Himekawa, who, despite his prodigious wealth, was somehow supremely deficient in fucks to give for anyone who wasn't himself.

But Furuichi didn't really want to accept this promise from the older teen, which he knew Oga had all but forced Himekawa to offer. He knew that for some reason, everyone felt guilty about what had happened to him, which, yeah, sucked, but he'd accepted long ago that he would risk severe bodily harm for being friends with Oga.

And he was okay with that, because having a friend like Oga, being trusted with the back of the Mad Dog and knowing his own back was safe at the same time, made all the pain in the world worth it. But to accept this crooked, awkward, miraculous apology for said harm seemed to… _cheapen_ Furuichi's friendship with Oga in some way. It was as though Himekawa – and, by extension, Oga, who had called for this apology – were telling him that they didn't want his sacrifice, didn't want his trust, didn't need to be trusted by him. And it hurt.

Furuichi opened his mouth to reject the offer when Himekawa lifted his head for the first time to look at him, and his words died in his throat.

Looking the senior dead in the eye, taking in his solemn mien and the vaguely pleading furrow of his brows, Furuichi could tell that he was wrong in at least one aspect: Himekawa had not been forced into anything. Maybe Oga had taken his own pound of flesh from him, had ordered contrition, but now it was blatantly obvious that Oga's actions had been unnecessary. Himekawa had needed no prompting, only time, to come to Furuichi with this offer. His face was heavy with guilt and the resolution to atone.

And that, more than anything, more than the pain of having his soul shredded or dealing with the after-effects or feeling the tentative, guilty desire to have his pain recognized, gave Furuichi pause in his rejection. He couldn't say whether he'd ever actually take the teen up on the offer, but for the sake of allowing Himekawa to absolve himself of guilt, Furuichi let his face split into a warm smile.

"…Thanks, senpai. I appreciate it."

* * *

 "So… What happened with the Fallen Angels guy? I didn't see any of you for the rest of the day."

Oga glanced up from the video game consol where he'd been inserting a fighting game disk. Furuichi thought about calling him out on the presumption of entering Furuichi's house, making popcorn, storming Furuichi's room, and using his things without permission, but decided against it – scolding had never worked in the past, and was unlikely to start now.

"Haa? Oh yeah, good shit. Used peanut butter to make hives rise up. Fucker's got all this funny shit written all over him now."

Furuichi sighed. Well, it could have been worse. He settled next to Oga against his bed and grabbed the other controller, spilling some of Oga's popcorn into his own bowl while they waited for the game to load.

"So what happened down there?" Oga mumbled around a mouthful of popcorn, eyes focused on the loading screen. Furuichi glanced up, confused.

"Down where?"

"Hell, idiot," Oga said, punctuating the insult with a flicked piece of popcorn. Furuichi grabbed the piece, licked it, then tossed it back into Oga's bowl, reveling in his squawk of revulsion and protest.

"Be more clear next time. And I already told you about the contracts," he said, grumbling and swatting when Oga up-ended the bowl over his head. Baby Beel squealed excitedly.

"Like that was all you did there," the dark-haired teen said with a roll of his eyes.

"Well the food was shit, but we already knew that from, you know, Hilda." Oga nodded sagely, morosely, in agreement. "Um. They also wanted to train me with weapons, but that didn't work out very well. I made some progress with the ice stuff, though," Furuichi said brightly, then groaned as Oga's character knocked Furuichi's off a cliff.

"Is it helping at all? The contracts, I mean. With your memory shit," Oga said gruffly. Furuichi's mouth twisted, fighting a smile. His friend was so bad at being caring and worried. Not cute at all, but Furuichi appreciated the effort.

"Maybe? My dreams were clearer last night. It's like now I'm watching from the outside, so I don't get confused by actually living and feeling what's going on. I wasn't as stressed this morning, and I was actually able to sleep the night. Might be a fluke, but…maybe not. We'll see." Furuichi paused, considering telling Oga about Laymia's potential solution. The decision was taken out of his hands by one of his friend's occasional bouts of perceptiveness.

"There's something else," Oga said, glancing at Furuichi. Furuichi took the opportunity to slip through his character's guard and land a critical strike. Oga punched him.

"Laymia suggested a coma to bring back all the memories at once. It would be around a week long to start, and it might help, but it also might break by mind. But at least it would be over with, and if it worked, I wouldn't be a liability when Fuji makes his move."

"Why the fuck would you put yourself in a coma, moron?"

"I just told you why, idiot. So? What do you think?"

"I think it's a shitty idea. You're useless either way, so better to be useless and conscious, so I can make fun of you for it."

"That's–!"

"A good philosophy. Did you hear that, young master? Learn from this smelly ape the proper way to treat your subordinates."

"Hilda!"

"The hell have you been?" Oga said.

"I've discovered the Solomon Company's headquarters," Hilda stated unceremoniously, hopping down onto Furuichi's bed from the windowsill. Despite the stark tone, there was some fiery promise burning in her eyes. "That is where we will find the young master's mother, Madame Iris."

Ah. That explained the eyes. "Where is it?"

"Los Angeles, California, in the United States."

"Pack your shit, Furuichi. We're going on a road trip," Oga grunted. He did not bother to look up from the video game.

Beside Furuichi, Alaindelon slid out from under the bed. He had his hands clasped to his chest and was side-glancing the teen coyly, his cheeks flushed a rosy pink that made Furuichi want to hide under his sheets for the rest of his life.

"I've prepared myself for your entrance, Furuichi-dono," the demon cooed.

Furuichi shrieked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Attention all adolescents with possible delinquent tendencies: Do Oga and Furuichi's friendship and the Ishiyama interactions seem natural? Are they all sufficiently emotionally stunted with each other? Are they too casually violent? Hell, do delinquents even read fanfiction that my questions might be answered, or are they too busy delinquenting? Am I stereotyping now? Why is the sky blue? What even is life???
> 
> Also, someone asked me where I got the idea for this fic, and it's actually a totally epic tale, full of adventure and heroism. So there I was, playing Skyrim and raining fire down upon vampires, wearing my Snow Elf armor, and was like: Snow elves are cool. They have pale hair and eyes and skin. You know who else has pale hair and eyes and skin? Furuichi from Beelzebub. I'm totally gonna do a crossover. This is gonna be effing sweet. And that is the entire premise of this fic. Cool story, right?
> 
> Anywho, if anyone even braved the above morass of early morning half-asleep ranting, I hope you enjoyed the chapter. I can't promise the next one will come quickly, although I seem to be rather motivated lately, so we'll see.
> 
> I appreciate constructive criticism, and please let me know if anything is confusing or you see any errors.
> 
> ~Breather


	8. Jaunt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Story Warnings: Some violence and strong language. Mentions of deceased OCs.
> 
> Disclaimer: If you recognize any names, terms, or concepts it's because they don't belong to me.

Furuichi felt a small grin tug at his lips, unbidden. _Almost like home_ , he thought, eyeing the hi-jackers Oga had planted into the scorching asphalt road. He glanced around surreptitiously and saw that the large American they had rescued was occupied with shouting excitedly into Oga's face, and knelt down quickly to press his hands to the firearms Oga had knocked to the ground. Within moments, the plastic and metal bodies began to creak and scream with cold and a quick smack against the road had them shattering irreparably. Furuichi stood smoothly, brushed the desert dust off his jeans, and made his way back over to Oga.

The man was still shouting excitedly, but louder now, as though volume was a decent substitute for actual knowledge of a foreign language. Oga and Furuichi stared blankly, before turning to each other simultaneously.

_Oi, Furuichi, say something,_ Oga's glance said.

_What the hell am I supposed to say? I haven't taken English since middle school! You know, back when we actually had teachers?_ Furuichi's eyes seethed back.

_Say anything! You're supposed to be good at shit like this, right? Acting smart?_

_Ahh, good point, good point._

"Ah, hello. My name Takayuki. What you name?" said the teen, smiling encouragingly.

The man stared blankly, uncomprehending, unable to parse the thick accent. He coughed a bit into his fist and glanced away uncomfortably.

_Need help, brat?_ Hecadoth intoned lazily. _And why were you so worked up at first about speaking to me nonverbally? You do it with your friend just fine._

_It's not the same_ , Furuichi argued with all the logic and self-assuredness of a teenager. _But never mind that. How can you help?_

_I'm letting Laymia hi-jack our connection, okay? My English isn't great, but she can translate better. Give it a minute._

And there was suddenly a great empty void in the back of Furuichi's skull where Hecadoth's vague presence had once resided. He sucked in a sharp breath at the strange feeling, and then cringed at the noise that began emanating from that void.

_Is that…elevator music? Hecadoth what the fuck, did you just put me on hold?!_

There was no response, and Furuichi was left seething as Oga and the American both stared at him expectantly.

_Furuichi, are you there?_ came Laymia's voice finally, vaguely distorted and sounding as though it was a great distance away.

_Laymia?_

_Oh good, it worked. Hecadoth mentioned you were having trouble with a language. If you let me listen in, I can translate what they're saying and tell you what to say._

Furuichi gestured to the American to continue speaking, smiling again and waving his hand at the man, who stared at him very strangely before speaking again, slowly at first but picking up in speed and volume, as seemed to be the norm for him. Laymia listened through Furuichi's ears as the man continued to jabber incomprehensibly.

_Oh my, he's got quite a crude accent, but I believe he's asking if there's anything he can do to repay you. Here, repeat after me…_

"Well met, hearty traveler! Alas, this cruel world hath conspired 'gainst us, and thus we are lost, as a fallen leaf upon a mighty gale. Mayhap thou couldst offer mine churlish ally and I direction?" Furuichi smiled charmingly, tongue thick around the unfamiliar syllables.

"Er. You… You fellas want a ride, maybe? Least I can do for saving my life."

"Aye, if it please thee, we do accept, kind sir!" _This demon translation thing was great_ , Furuichi thought gleefully. Hilda made a strange coughing sound behind him. She was totally impressed, he decided, as he and Oga hopped up into the man's truck.

"Haha! You're a strange one, alright. What did you say your name was?" Michael called over the booming radio.

Furuichi turned a blinding grin on Oga. _It worked!_

Oga gave him a thumbs up and a solemn nod – _As expected of Furuichi_ , his eyes said – and Furuichi turned back to the man, whose words Laymia had just translated into Japanese for him.

"You may call me Takayuki, good sir! And this is – "

"Fuck," Oga interjected, eager to join in with the only English word he knew. Furuichi almost gaped at him, but then thought better of it – he wasn't actually that surprised, after all.

"Bwahaha! What a funny name! Whew, you Japanese fellas are great," Michael snickered, wiping a tear from his eye. "Anyways, here we are in my truck, and I've got no damn idea where you boys are even headed!"

"The City of Angels beckons us, sir," Furuichi said.

"L.A., huh? Well, you're in luck! I'm headed there m'self. Can't make it there today, of course, it's still a good nine hours driving. I know a good place to stop for the night, though. Best lasagna for a hundred miles! Haha! Oh, wait, this's a _great_ song! _Wooo~ Route Sixty-Six!_ "

Furuichi and Oga stared. _I'm sorry, Furuichi, but I can't quite tell what he's saying…_ Laymia offered tentatively.

_That's okay. I don't think he's really expecting a response, now._

Two hours later, Furuichi was quite sure his left ear would never be quite the same. Oga and Beel had managed to fall into dozing – _the lucky bastards –_ and Hilda had not shown her face for the entirety of the drive, but judging by the strange scuffling and creaking from the top of the cab, she had made herself at home above them.

"Well, here we are, fellas!" Michael crowed as they pulled to a stop. It took Laymia a moment to realize that he had begun speaking coherently again, and she rushed to translate for her contractor. "Home sweet home, s'what I call it. Mm, can't _wait_ to dig in! You boys'll love it."

"Sir Michael, thy kindness doth know no bound. That you make us welcome at thine hearth and table is a true blessing. Yea, Sir, we are blessed by thee!"

Michael chuckled. "Heh, you're a real jokester, kid. It's not a problem. Well, I hope the rest of the town doesn't give you a bad impression, we've fallen on some hard times, lately," he finished somberly, gesturing to the run-down and graffitied buildings. Furuichi waited a moment for Laymia to finish translating and was about to question the man when a screech echoed through the night.

"Brenda!" Michael yelled, breaking into run. He was surprisingly spry for his size and age, and Oga and Furuichi hurried after him to the front door of the house they'd already been approaching. Just as they reached the yard, a young woman came rushing out of the house and clung to Michael's arm.

She yelled back, emboldened by the man's presence, at a set of thugs who followed her out. As far as Furuichi was able to tell, she was threatening the men in some way, although Laymia was not able to provide an interpretation of what, exactly, a 'line-backer' was, and which Michael had apparently forgotten he used to be.

_Perhaps some type of military reinforcement,_ Laymia contemplated. Furuichi was starting to question her abilities as a translator. But then he looked at Oga, who apparently felt that punching people in the face was the best way to communicate as he readily disposed of the thugs and then moved on to Michael's son, and was too grateful for words to the demoness. He felt her preen in his mind.

"Hah! Yep, you guys sure are useful to have around," Michael exclaimed later as they all sat around the dinner table, finishing up his tale of how Oga had saved him from several armed hi-jackers. "You'll be ready to head out first thing in the morning, yeah? I've got a schedule to keep, and I've gotta make sure there's time to get you boys where you need to go."

"Verily! We shall venture forth on the morrow in pursuit of those craven villains of the Solomon Company. Let the rising sun bear witness!" Furuichi said, enthused. And all sound came to a screeching halt.

"Did you say… the Solomon Company?" Michael said slowly. Furuichi frowned concernedly.

"A-Aye?"

"Please leave. Right now. We can't be involved in that business," Brenda said, her tone cold and closed-off. Duran, her brother and apparent redeemed thug, was staring at them darkly.

"The Solomon Company brings nothing but trouble. If you've got business with them, you're only bringing more trouble to our doorstep, and we won't have it. So get the hell out," Duran growled, taking a threatening step towards them. Oga stood up and made to shove the man back, but Furuichi rushed forward and gripped his friend's arm.

"You can't hit him, Oga, not when we're guests in their house. Even if they're kicking us out now, Michael gave us a ride and some food, so we should be grateful. Come on, let's go," Furuichi hissed, pulling at Oga's arm. He turned to the Americans still sitting uncomfortably at the table.

"Thine hospitality, while it lasted, was most appreciated. Sir Michael, Lady Brenda, Sir Duran, we do wish you the best," he said with a bow, turning to drag Oga away.

"Agh, hold up, fellas, I'll walk you out," Michael sighed resignedly, hefting himself out of his chair and walking with them out into the night. "Please don't think we ain't grateful for the help, but…"

"We get it. They've done some nasty shit, huh?" Oga grunted.

"Aye, sir, thine family must come first– wait," Furuichi started, turning to Oga. "When the hell did you start speaking English?!" he screeched, slipping back into Japanese.

"Hilda gave me this translator ear piece a while back," he said, pulling a small black bud from his left ear. "I dunno where you learned English, Furuichi, but you sound like a moron. It's hilarious," said Furuichi's best friend in the world, with a straight face and thumb's up.

"You _sonuva–"_

"Er, fellas?"

_"What?"_ they barked in unison at the startled man. Quickly recalling the situation, Furuichi offered a sheepish, apologetic grin and accepted another one of the translation ear buds from Hilda, who snorted at him in mocking amusement.

"So how'd they fuck you guys over?" Oga asked gruffly.

Michael heaved a huge, exhausted sigh and turned away from them. He stared out into the distance with the air of a man with far too much to say, and no idea how to convey it all. After a moment, he began to speak.

"The Solomon Company moved out here years back, built that big factory you can see in the distance. At first we thought it would be our saving grace, having that much work available. But horrible things started happening. Workers coming down with strange illnesses, mysterious accidents… And of course the only doctor around worked for the Company, too, so he could charge however much he wanted. Only way to pay him back was to keep working in that place, and keep risking injury.

"Well, people started getting the impression they'd been had, but it turned out the work contracts were all full of loopholes no one around here was educated enough to notice when they signed 'em, so there was no way to duck out or quit without serious consequences. Couldn't even take vacation time or get compensation for work injuries, not with all that fine print. Whole time, of course, they were recruiting our kids and bringing in punks from out of town. Gangs started springing up, bribed by the Company to enforce their rules on our town. Any complaints about the Company's business, any questions about how legal those contracts were got put down real fast, real hard.

"We were stuck with 'em, well and good, and it was around the time we were resigned to that, that people started disappearing. Just, they'd go in to work one day, and never come home again. Police got called in and left within the day – something about the Company scared 'em too much to do any kind of investigation. Still don't know what happened to those people, probably never will. Not too sure I'd like to know, to be honest. My wife was one of those, but if something horrible happened to her… Well, I'd just as soon like my kids to think she passed nice and easy. Whether that's true or not."

Furuichi was staring in horror. He knew that the Solomon Company was dealt in bad business and that everyone involved with them got screwed over in major ways, but the scope of what they'd done to this town… Furuichi couldn't find the words for it, and neither could Oga, if the way he had just kicked a hole in a concrete dividing wall was any indication. He looked back at Michael, who was still staring forlornly into the distance. Furuichi didn't think he had ever seen such a lonely figure.

"If we get the chance to learn what happened to your wife and the others, do you want us to let you know, Michael?" he said tentatively, feeling uncomfortable for breaking the heavy silence that had descended on the night.

"…I think I'll leave that up to you. It's been near on fifteen years since they took her from us and I could do with some closure, but I couldn't take it if the details ain't pretty. And even though I'm not around as often as I'd like to be, my kids still need at least one parent in their lives." The finality of Michael's words sent chills down Furuichi's spine.

"I'll find out what happened to her, Michael. I promise. And I promise we'll take them down, make them pay for what they've done." He hoped he hadn't just lied to the man.

"…I'd be much obliged, Takayuki, Fuck."

"Alright," Oga interjected baldly. "Let's go beat the shit out of 'em." He began trudging unceremoniously towards the silhouette of the factory at the end of the street. Furuichi and Hilda instinctively joined him on either side.

"Wuh– Wait! Just like that? Hey now, those guys are dangerous, you can't just storm in there! It ain't that easy!" Michael called, puffing after them.

* * *

"…I guess it was that easy," Michael said quietly as he stared at the carnage wrought on the factory and the gang inhabiting it. He was slumped against a pile of old tires, looking shaken. Furuichi grinned beside him.

"Nah, Oga's just a monster. If you or any of the other people here had tried it, you probably would've lost."

It had been the work of mere moments for Oga to utterly demolish the King's Jokers gang and to send their leader flying over the roof of the factory. Finally satisfied with the level of violence, Oga proceeded to question the fallen thugs – those who were still conscious, anyway. Furuichi was disappointed, but not particularly surprised, to learn that none of them knew anything of substance.

"Oi! Come on, help me find the boss. He's gotta know more, right?" Oga called. Furuichi jerked around and nodded, jogging after him as Oga and Hilda headed towards the other side of the building.

"Wait here, Michael! We'll be back in a bit," he called over his shoulder. He caught a glimpse of the still-dazed man nodding at him.

They rounded the corner of the building and there, several yards away, Corey lay groaning on the ground, his clothes sizzling and smelling faintly of barbeque. When he saw them approaching, he let out a high, whining moan and struggled to right himself. When he failed to rise, he began to claw weakly at the ground in an attempt to crawl away. Before he could move even a yard, Oga planted a foot squarely on his back, pinning him in place. Hilda crouched beside him, her sword pressed against his throat, and Furuichi circled around and knelt in front of the American.

"Please," Corey gasped desperately, his eyes roving wildly with terror. Furuichi was reminded vaguely of a panicked bull, like the Taurus he was contracted with, and wouldn't have been surprised if the man began frothing at the mouth. "Please don't kill me! They made me do it, I'm– I'm innocent here, just a victim! I didn't want to hurt anybody, but I couldn't get away! Please, please, oh God I don't want to die–"

He trailed off at the disgusted look on Furuichi's face. "We're not murderers, not like you guys. Tell us where the factory's records are kept."

"Yeah! Yeah, of course, it's all in the overseer's office. Third floor, at the end of the hallway. There's a bunch of filing cabinets and a computer that connects to the Company's intranet."

Furuichi stared at him suspiciously, eyes narrowed. He glanced up at Oga and they shared a brief nod.

"I don't think you're lying," he said finally. "You're square with us." Corey's body sagged visibly with relief. "But don't think you're in the clear. You and your gang did some really horrible shit to this town, and I'm sure they'll want revenge, but that's not our business."

"So you can either stay here and accept your lynching by angry mob," Hilda added coolly, "or you can start crawling." She pointed sharply out into the dark, barren landscape.

"H-hey, come on now, guys. We're in the middle of a fucking _desert_. There's nothing around–" he cut off sharply as Hilda's blade pressed into his neck. A thin line of blood trickled down and stained the collar of his jacket.

"Should've thought of that before you decided to terrorize a town way out in the sticks like this one," Oga snarled. "You know what they say about small town justice."

"Oh God," Corey whispered. His face fell into the dusty ground and his body began to tremble as Oga stepped off of him. "Wait! Wait, take me with you. I can– I can show you to the Company Headquarters! You won't find an address in that office, I promise, only one for a puppet facility. And then– and then I'll turn myself in, I swear! Just please, don't leave me out here. You said you weren't murderers, right?"

Furuichi sighed, stared at Oga who stared back. Hilda clicked her tongue and looked away with a sneer – she was never merciful, and Furuichi was inclined to agree with her at the moment.

"I don't want to waste time searching if the real address isn't in that office," Oga grunted. "Beel wants to see his mom soon." At that, Furuichi could see Hilda break.

"Yes yes, we'll take him with us," she agreed disdainfully. Behind them, Corey began to sob with relief.

"We still need those records, though, to find out what happened to the people here," Furuichi said. The words had scarcely left his lips before Hilda was gone, jumping straight up onto the roof of the factory and then slipping into an upper floor window. Moments later he was ducking for cover as filing cabinets began to rain from the window, imbedding themselves into the packed earth.

"This was all I could find. The computer was crashed, though," Hilda said, joining them once again. "You can go through these, but hurry. I don't want to delay meeting the mistress any longer."

"I can't–" _read English_ , he started to say, but was cut off as Laymia reasserted her presence in his mind.

_If you let me see through your eyes, I can translate for you,_ she offered.

_…Er. It seems like your English is a little, um, outdated_ , he thought tentatively. He received a reluctant sigh in return.

_I admit the speech patterns I'm accustomed to have not been commonly used for the past several hundred years, but I can still interpret those documents for you_.

_Mmnh. Yeah, okay, thanks_ , he said, then began to flick through the yellowed sheets in one of the cabinets, listening as the demoness rattled off the information contained therein.

"It looks like expense reports, mostly… Nothing about the employees," Furuichi murmured as he thumbed through a water-stained file. He wasn't sure whether he was relieved or disappointed. While he regretted not being able to give Michael closure at the moment, he was also beyond thankful that he wouldn't have to tell the man his wife had been tortured to death or something. When he brought the news to him, Michael seemed similarly conflicted, and for similar reasons.

"Well, I reckon we better shove off," Michael said, staring across the horizon where the dawning sun was beginning to paint the night sky with gold and turquoise. He was carefully massaging his knuckles, bruised from planting his fist in Corey's face as a small retribution after they brought the thug and the information back around front.

Furuichi gave the man a grim, determined smile beside Oga's solemn nod. They were all silent for a long moment, anticipation welling at the thought of what the following day could bring.

And then:

"Hey Furuichi! Check it out, it's a real tumbleweed!"

"Oh shit, wait, lemme get my phone… Here, take a picture!"

* * *

"Hurry up, bird!" Furuichi called. It had been several hours since Michael had ushered them all into his truck just as the sun was making its appearance, with Corey on his bike ready to lead them into the city.

Their arrival into Los Angeles had been heralded with a volley of gunfire as a man in a dark suit pulled his bike up next to Corey's and shot him in the head with a sawed-off shotgun (Furuichi had been nothing but neutral at Hilda's assertion that he survived thanks to his demon). Oga's retaliation against the attack had ended up demolishing Michael's truck, but leaving the assailant completely uninjured.

He had been beyond frustrated at seeing his best friend walk into that building alone, but Hilda was able to offer a fast solution. Furuichi considered that he might have preferred a slower solution, if it meant he didn't have to cling to the wing joint of a giant reptilian bird several hundred feet in the air, closing in on the skyscraper home to the Solomon Company.

"Stop yelling, Furuichi! Ak-baba can't go any faster than this. We're almost there, so just hang on. Or don't, I don't really ca–" her caustic voice was cut off by a great percussive _THOOM_ , as the windows of one floor all shattered in a burst of sparking yellow energy, raining glass and debris onto the street below.

"Young Master! Madam Iris!" Hilda cried as they descended into the dark of the building. Furuichi ducked into a roll as the bird came to a sudden stop, covering his face with his forearms to protect himself from glass shards and debris. He shook off and righted himself, eyes dancing frantically to take in the scene. Oga, his arm a bleeding, torn mess, towering over the fallen form of the man who had attacked them. Baby Beel, beaten and dirty, squealing triumphantly on Oga's shoulder. And there, on the ground, a slender, pale woman with long dark hair was collapsed on beside an overturned wheelchair, a large burn wound marring her forehead.

"Oga! And that's Beel's mom…?" Furuichi murmured to himself.

"Beelze… You've gotten really big," the frail woman on the floor was saying tremulously, tears making tracks in the blood and dust that coated her face.

"Ai! Aidah buu!" Beel cooed at the woman from over Oga's shoulder, grabbing at Oga's collar and kicking his pudgy legs, asking to be put down. Very slowly, Oga reached around to pick up the infant and placed him gently on the ground. He knelt down and dragged his hand through the child's green hair, scratching around his ears and then ruffling hard enough to make the small head duck down.

"Go," Oga said quietly, with eyes for no one but the child before him. "Go on, along with your mother. If what she said is true, then my job here is done, so go back to the demon world with her." He paused a bit, and a faint smile broke across his chapped lips. "Heh, you looked like a real man just now trying to protect your mother, Beel. Good job."

And with that he stood, turned his back on the child he'd raised for a year, and began to walk away. Immediately Beel was rushing after him, whimpering and with fat tears running from his eyes.

"Hey, didn't we make a deal all that time ago? That you wouldn't cry?"

"Da Da! Dada! _Dada_!" the infant wailed, crawling after his father across the broken floor to grab at his pant legs. But Oga kept walking.

"This past year spent with you was nothing but trouble, but… It was a fun ride," Oga whispered hoarsely, fists clenched tightly. He glanced to the side, as though to turn back to the child, but could not bring himself to complete the motion. But the shift was more than enough for Furuichi, standing frozen beside Hilda in front of the shattered window front, to see a glimmer in his eyes.

And then Furuichi saw red. A snarl blooming on his face, he stalked up to Oga and punched him squarely across the jaw. The hit wasn't strong enough to make the teen stumble or fall back, but it was enough to snap his face to the side and to make Furuichi's knuckles throb with pain. Oga's head slowly cranked back around, a brutal, bloodthirsty grimace on his face, contrasting oddly with the red mark on his cheek that was sure to bruise.

"Oi, Furuichi. Since when do you have a death wish…?"

"Shut the hell up, Oga. Don't you _fucking dare_ abandon that child," Furuichi hissed shoving his face right up in front of Oga's. Maybe Furuichi did not know the pain of losing a loved one in this lifetime, but he had lost _everything_ in his past one, and the thought of this _bastard_ throwing away such an incredibly precious bond out of some pathetic cowardice, disguised as a misplaced attempt at maturity and selflessness, filled him with rage.

"You… You said to me a while ago that I was being a coward about not accepting a demon contract because I was afraid of discovering that no one would want me. But damn it, now you're doing the same fucking thing! You're afraid that _your son_ will choose his mother over you, so you're abandoning him before he can do that. How _dare_ you put the burden on your child to choose between his parents! It's his right to have both parents in his life, if he wants!

"But you know what? Even if he does eventually choose his mother over you, you have to be there for him regardless. Because that's what being a parent's about, supporting your child selflessly, at your own expense. You accepted that responsibility when you claimed him as your son! So tell me, Oga Tatsumi. Are you going back on your word now? Have you become a coward?"

Furuichi fumed, stared into his friend's eyes, and awaited a response.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please excuse my gross bastardization of Shakespearean English. (except I'm not really sorry).
> 
> To be honest, I'm not entirely satisfied with this chapter. I felt pretty constrained by following Tamura's plot (which is excellent in its own right), not really sure how much detail to include about what was already portrayed in the manga. Future updates will read less like the original story with a few details tweaked and added. Speaking of coming chapters, alas, we are coming to a close. There will be two, maybe three more, depending on how I decide to handle the fight with Fuji.
> 
> Also, might I just say that the Beelzebub spinoff is sort of everything I never knew I wanted in a spinoff.


	9. Homecoming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Story Warnings: Some violence and strong language. Mentions of deceased OCs.
> 
> Disclaimer: If you recognize any names, terms, or concepts it's because they don't belong to me.

“ _So tell me, Oga Tatsumi. Are you going back on your word now? Have you become a coward?”_

Oga stared at him, looking lost and pained. It was an expression Furuichi had never before seen on his friend’s face, and desperately wished he hadn’t been the one to put it there. But it was necessary, Furuichi reminded himself harshly, still outraged as he stared the other teen down.

“Shit,” Oga muttered, glancing away. His face twisted into a conflicted grimace. “I’m no coward.” And he knelt down and opened his arms, then immediately fell backwards as Baby Beel tackled him with a squeal. Oga, sprawled on the ground, curled around the child attached to his chest and squeezed. Furuichi grinned and snapped a sly picture on his phone, resolving to show it to Misaki later.

Across the room, Iris began to sniffle. “Oh, Beelze… I’m so glad you’ve found such a wonderful parent,” she sighed. Hilda had a strange, complicated expression on her face – something between adoration for her master, and frustration that Oga was the one he loved.

“Alright, alright,” Oga grunted, righting himself and tilting his head to the side to let Beel scramble up his shoulder. He walked over to Johan’s prone form, just beginning to stir back to consciousness, and kicked at his ribs.

“Oi, you better have some rooms here. You owe us a nice place to stay, after all the shit you put us through.”

“Ugh, you’re staying…?” the man groaned, coughing out pebbles and small clouds of mortar dust. He slowly pulled himself upright, but couldn’t seem to muster the energy to stand.

“Che. We came all this way, like hell we’re leaving without Beel-boy spending some time with his mom.”

“Ai! Dah dabuh, nfu babu!”

“Right, she’s sick, too, of course we can’t just take off.”

The baby began gesticulating wildly, babbling in an apparently intelligible way to Oga, who began nodding along.

“You wanna stay and help your mom for a while? We can do that. Eh? Nah, we can stay longer than that, how about four days?”

Beel blew a raspberry of agreement, and the two shook hands very solemnly. Iris just looked at them, her lower lip wibbling with affection and amusement as Oga hefted Johan to his feet and began barking out orders to prepare a set of rooms.

“The young master has really grown since you last saw him, Madam Iris. He’s quickly becoming a man,” Hilda smiled, kneeling down to pull the woman back into her wheelchair. Iris laughed a little helplessly.

“He really has! And I haven’t been here to see it. After leaving my baby alone for a whole year, and somehow I’m lucky enough to be here for his first word… Do I really deserve this happiness?”

“People make mistakes,” Furuichi murmured, picking up her shawl and attempting to shake the dust out. “But that’s why you have friends and people you trust around you, to tell you when you messed up and to help you fix it. Maybe you made a mistake, but your husband and son still love you and want to be with you. How can you say you don’t deserve it, when the evidence is right there?”

He smiled at her, pressing the shawl into her hands, and Iris smiled back so gently and sweetly that Furuichi felt his heart clench. Over her shoulder, Hilda was eyeing him suspiciously.

“You’ve been surprisingly dependable during this trip, Furuichi. What are you planning?”

“Nothing!” he squawked in protest. “What’s wrong with saying good things every now and then?”

“No, she’s right, Furuichi. You’re being really creepy. Stop it,” Oga deadpanned. Having finished bullying Johan, he walked over and unceremoniously deposited Baby Beel in Iris’ lap. She seemed frozen for a moment, and Beel likewise, before she wrapped her arms around the child and buried her face in his baby-soft hair. The matching choked-off, desperate sobs of mother and son stayed Furuichi’s tongue, stole the rebuttal from his lips.

He smiled a bit instead, but quickly became embarrassed by the touching sight and turned away to give them some privacy.

“Anyway, that Solomon bastard’s got us all set up. Five-star suites,” Oga said with a cheesy, deadpan thumbs-up. Hilda nodded, satisfied. “You staying too, Furuichi?”

“No, I should head back, make sure the school hasn’t been burned to the ground. Again, I mean. Actually, it’s probably safer with you halfway across the world,” Furuichi considered. Oga stomped on his foot. In his distracted pain, it took a few moments to register that another voice was questioning after him.

“Furuichi?” Iris asked, her voice still a little thick with emotion. “Are you leaving, now?”

“Ah, yeah, probably,” Furuichi returned, setting his foot back on the ground.

“Oh, that’s too bad. You seem to have a good head on your shoulders,” she smiled serenely, taking one of his hands and patting the top of it with her other one. Baby Beel stared at Furuichi’s hand like he would dearly love to feed it to a Gorgonzola dragon.

Furuichi carefully extricated his hand from her grip and rubbed the back of his head awkwardly.

“Haha, well I don’t know about that,” he said.

“Hmm, no, I like to think I’m a decent judge of character,” she said. Furuichi exercised every ounce of tact he had ever possessed in order not to mention how blatantly fooled she had been by Johan and the rest of the Solomon Company.

“And anyway,” she continued, “we’ve been following your actions from here. They call you Ishiyama’s General, yes?”

Furuichi grimaced. He was really starting to hate that title. He had taken considerable pride in being known as the smartest in the school back…before. But now, knowing what he did about the realities of war, he took no pleasure in being forced into a position that was known for making harsh decisions and sacrifices of the men under its command. He shrugged a bit, feeling very much like a petulant, recalcitrant teenager, but was unwilling to either confirm or deny her question.

Iris smiled thinly, her eyes sharp with comprehension. “I suppose that wasn’t really a question for you to answer, was it? It is your classmates whose feelings on the matter are most important. If they feel that is your place among them, then don’t you think you have the responsibility to respond in kind?”

Furuichi sucked in a sharp breath. He knew, he _did_ , that he would not be able to turn them away if they sought his guidance, but he certainly wasn’t going to offer it first. Again, he remained silent, but Iris did not seem to need his answer; she simply nodded, apparently satisfied by whatever she was able to see in his face.

“I’ll trust you to keep my son’s affairs in order, then.”

“Hey,” Oga cut in, uncommonly solemn. “You sure you’ll be okay?” He didn’t need to complete the thought for Furuichi to catch the implication.

“Psh,” Furuichi scoffed. “Seriously, what are the chances of Fuji attacking while you’re gone? It’ll be fine.”

 

* * *

 

Stepping through Alaindelon always seemed… _dirty_ , Furuichi grimaced as he was transferred back across the Pacific Ocean. But maybe that had something to do with the way the shitty demon had dropped him behind the slimy dumpster at the front of the school building.

With a tremendous yawn, Furuichi interlocked his fingers and stretched his arms far above his head, then cast a disgruntled look at the sun, still high in the sky. He inwardly cursed time differences, knowing he would have to wait even longer to get some sleep. _Well_ , he amended, _it’s not like anyone will notice or care if I sleep during class_. Ishiyama was dependable that way.

But… something was off, Furuichi realized as he glanced around. Empty. There were no gatherings of thugs in darkened corners of the campus, no boisterous figures visible through the windows, no voices splitting the air with curses and vulgarity. Furuichi had never seen Ishiyama so barren. He shivered, uncomfortably reminded of the derelict, blood-splattered villages that raiding parties – on both sides of the war – had left in their wake, back in Fainor’s time.

Furuichi quickly strode out of the eerie, bare courtyard and into the nearest building. The hallways were just as abandoned. There weren’t even any fresh bloodstains, and there was no lingering scent of permanent markers or spray paint. It was a damn _crypt_ , he realized, sickening dread clawing its way up to his throat from the pit of his stomach.

And then his breath left him, stark relief stopping his heart and freezing his lungs as a familiar voice called out to him.

“Furuichi! Shit, you’re finally back. Where’s Oga?” Natsume said, rushing up to him and glancing shiftily out the windows as he approached.

“He’s not here,” Furuichi said, startled. “Beel’s mom is sick, so they all stayed behind to take care of her. Why, what happened? Where _is_ everyone?”

“ _Fuck_ ,” the senior cursed with uncharacteristic vitriol, running a faintly shaking hand through lank hair. “Look, Fuji’s made his move. We’ve already lost some guys and… a lot of other people, too.”

Cold dread seeped into the marrow of his bones. “Lost…? No, don’t tell me they’re–!”

“C’mon, I’ll show you,” he said gravely, leading Furuichi inwards towards the central courtyard. They saw only a bare handful of students on the way there, all of them quiet and restrained, and Furuichi desperately wanted to demand answers, but the way Natsume’s face was tight and stiff with frustration kept him quiet. The senior kicked open the inner door leading to the courtyard unceremoniously, resignedly.

At first glance, Furuichi he thought someone had taken up sculpting, but then, no, _he recognized those faces_. Ninestatues, life sized and eerily detailed, frozen in dynamic, aggressive poses. He recognized three fodder thugs, Good Night Shimokawa, two of the MK5, and three of the Fallen Angels. One of the latter had a series of raised bumps across his face that read ‘BITCH’ – it was the one who had tortured him before.

“What…?”

“This is Fuji’s demon’s power. Satan, apparently. He petrifies people. Heh, just like you said, we sent out that Fallen Angels guy first, right when Fuji showed up two days ago, along with a few other guys. This is what happened.” Natsume gestured helplessly at the statues. “He left right after, though, saying he wanted to have some fun playing ‘War’ with Ishiyama’s General before killing the demon prince. He’s waiting for you and Oga, Furuichi. Now that you’re back… Well, anyway, since then he’s come back a few times and petrified some guys, whoever happens to be unlucky enough to be out when he comes around. Doesn’t stick around for a fight, though, and we can’t chase him or we’ll get frozen too.” His voice was thick was enraged frustration. Furuichi knew the feeling well.

“Come on, there’s more,” Natsume said darkly, cutting across the hallway to the windows that looked out over the back campus and parking lot. Furuichi wanted to ask, _How could there be more? How could it be worse?_

But all words died in his throat as he took in the yard. Over a dozen more bodies, stone gray and frozen in time, were scattered across the dirt in all positions, strewn about like some perverse yard ornaments. But more than the fact that they had been petrified was the fact that _they were still there_. Because Furuichi remembered. Or rather, Fainor did. He recalled sending out a contingent of battlemages to freeze the on-coming armies solid, remembered raising his arm to signal the archers to strike the frozen forms. Remembered seeing the bodies _shatter_ like ice, and wished he didn’t remember the pungent, pulpy mess of offal left behind after they melted.

“Get them out of there,” he heard himself say sharply. “The bodies, they can’t stay out there. It’s not safe.”

Natsume looked at him strangely. “I’m pretty sure no one’s going to be aiming at them, and they’re fucking _heavy_.”

Furuichi drew in a sharp breath. “Stone is _brittle_ , senpai. What do you think would happen if they get hit too hard and break? What do you think they’d be like when we fix them?” _When, not if. It has to be_ when.

Natsume got it, evident in the way his face paled and his mouth pursed with nausea. He nodded shakily and grimaced. “Right, I’ll get some guys on that in a bit. But first, we need to check in with Himekawa.”

“What have you guys been doing?” Furuichi asked briskly, staring at the macabre statues for a minute longer before following Natsume back inside.

“Himekawa’s been keeping an eye on the town through all the CCTV cameras, and we’ve got a few guys patrolling the areas that don’t have an electronic surveillance. Kanzaki’s got his father’s men in on it, too, but they’re mostly keeping a perimeter around the town to keep people from coming in and making sure people stay in their houses, so no one gets hurt.”

“Seems like you guys have got this well in hand.”

Natsume laughed bitterly. “Yeah, I wish. It’s not like we can do anything when Fuji decides to fuck with us, though.” The senior paused here, his mouth twisted with something pained and furious. “He’s gone after a lot of our families. He petrified my parents and brother. Himekawa’s family was never here to start, and Kanzaki’s men were able to get his family to safety. We sent a few guys out to check on other people’s families, but most of them didn’t come back.”

“…What about my family?” Furuichi said, barely able to force the words past desiccated lips. Natsume looked at him tiredly.

“We don’t know for sure. We sent a couple guys to check on yours, Oga’s, and Kunieda’s families, but they didn’t come back. We didn’t send anyone else out.”

Furuichi stopped, canted to the side and leaned against the wall as his knees turned to rubber. Natsume offered him a sympathetic half-grin. “Hime’s in the room down the hall,” he said, gesturing with a thumb. “Go talk to him when you feel up to it. I’ve gotta get some guys to carry the statues out of the yard.”

_They’re just frozen, not dead,_ Furuichi told himself fiercely. _And not for very long, just until Oga comes back. This is far from a worst-case scenario, I’ve been through worse. Sort of._

Furuichi took a deep, fortifying breath, cordoning off thoughts of his family until he was in a position to actually help them. He pushed off the wall and made his way down the hallway, to the room Natsume had indicated was Himekawa’s base of operations – one of the few computer labs in the school that still had working, unvandalised computers.

He stepped through the door, expecting to see a flurry of activity like the time they had banded together to battle En online in Himekawa’s hi-tech apartment, but was instead met with an almost entirely empty skeleton room. All of the useless computers had been removed, the working ones along with several television sets rearranged to surround a single work desk, where a single figure sat.

Furuichi winced when he saw Himekawa’s face relax with relief at the sight of him. “Shit, finally–“

“Sorry,” Furuichi cut in sharply. “It’s just me. Oga won’t be back for a few days.” Himekawa’s face twisted into a complicated expression, stricken and disbelieving and desperate.

“Fucking hell, Furuichi, we can’t wait that long! None of us are strong enough to take this bastard, and he’s chipping away at the whole goddamn town! Use that creepy transport demon to bring him back, for fuck’s sake!"

“No,” Furuichi declared. “I won’t make him come back early. Beel needs time to reconnect with his mom, and I’m not gonna make Oga decide between his son and us. We’re just going to have to make do until he comes back. It won’t be long.”

The senior’s mouth pursed with displeasure, but he was obviously able to read Furuichi’s obstinance on the matter, and dropped it.

“Shit, whatever. If you’re so sure, then you get to take responsibility,” he growled. Furuichi grimaced uncomfortably – _he was starting to hate that word, responsibility_ – but nodded.

“Tell me what everyone’s been doing.”

“Kunieda’s got most of her Red Tails out on patrol along with Kanzaki’s guys. They’re the only ones that have really left the school much, besides Toujou and his two followers. They’ve been running all over town, trying to draw out Fuji’s guys.”

“How many are on Fuji’s side?”

“We’re not sure,” Himekawa admitted grudgingly. “We think he’s told anyone following him to pretend not to be and to attend school regularly. Well, they’re all just punks, though, so it’s not like it’s hard for Toujou to draw them out and put them out of commission.”

“So basically it’s all of us against only Fuji and Satan? That doesn’t seem too bad,” Furuichi pointed out, feeling hopeful. Himekawa grimaced.

“Yeah, I fucking wish it were that simple. Here, come look at this.” Himekawa turned back to the monitor he was stationed before, clicking the mouse a few times and bringing up a grainy image on the screen. Furuichi leaned over the senior’s shoulder for a better look.

“This is an image from a camera on the south side. Look closely at the alleyway there. See the shadow?” Furuichi nodded, able to distinguish the dark, man-shaped distortion that spilled out of the darkness between the brick buildings. “Well, watch this.” The senior clicked play, and Furuichi gaped as the shadow inched out of the alley onto the sidewalk and then _doubled_ and stretched away from the streetlight’s illumination.

“Holy shit, that shadow has a shadow.” Himekawa’s scowl deepened.

“Not quite. You haven’t seen it yet, Furuichi, but Satan petrifies people using this black smoke that he controls. Three guesses what that figure looks like it’s made of.”

“Natsume mentioned that people are ending up petrified all over town, even when Satan and Fuji are seen somewhere else,” Furuichi recalled, throat closing with anxiety as epiphany dawned on him. Himekawa nodded.

“Yeah, my thoughts exactly. Look at it just walking around like a person, it’s definitely got some sentience. He’s probably got a bunch of these fuckers patrolling the town, freezing anyone they come across.”

Furuichi cursed quietly. _How strong did Satan have to be that he was able to create numerous, at least partially sentient creatures with his demonic power and give them free reign over an entire town?_

“Hasn’t anyone realized that people aren’t coming in to work?” Furuichi blurted.

“Phones are completely down. No cell signals are reaching anywhere, and most of the telephone poles have been knocked down, so no landline. The internet only works if there’s a mobile hotspot nearby, and even then not unless the site servers are in the town. I’ve got a basic messaging system running from here, effective range of about a kilometer, but that’s all. We’re in the middle of a dead zone, twenty kilometers in every direction.”

_So between having cut all communications and petrifying anyone who tries to enter or exit the city, Fuji’s entirely cut us off from the rest of the world_. “But not forever,” Furuichi said aloud. Himekawa sent him a questioning look, and he hastened to add, “It’s not like he can keep this up forever, not in today’s world. Sooner or later, someone’s going to notice that we’re cut off.”

“Duh. But this bastard thinks he’s going to take us down before that happens,” Himekawa snarled.

“Like _hell_ we’re gonna make it easy for him,” Furuichi snapped.

“Hear fucking hear,” a low voice drawled from behind them. Furuichi turned around to see Kanzaki stepping into the room, looking more exhausted than he’d ever seen the senior before.

“Yo, Kanzaki. News?”

“Yeah, just got back. Lost three guys, but we got the info,” Kanzaki said, dragging a tired hand across his face. He glanced at Furuichi. “Back, huh? Finally, we could use your help. Where’s–"

“Not here,” Himekawa cut in. “Don’t ask, he’ll be along in a few days, apparently. Tell me what you found.”

“Oi, I don’t fucking take orders from you. Remember that,” Kanzaki scowled. “Anyway, it doesn’t look like the warehouse has been breached. Your device should still be there.”

“Good,” Himekawa sighed, then glanced at Furuichi. “Remember that device I used to sever the connection between Oga and his kid? Fucking Fuji smashed it to bits before we could use it on him; one of his goddamned spies told him all about it and where it was. I’ve got another one stored away in a warehouse across town, and Kanzaki here was kind enough to scope the place out for me. What do you think, Furuichi? Any ideas how to get it here without Fuji catching on?”

The teen settled back against the wall, brought up a hand to bite his knuckle contemplatively.

“…I think,” he began slowly, “that we could use some reinforcements.”

 

* * *

 

It was chaos, and Furuichi only had himself to blame. He sighed and slunk down in his chair, pinching the bridge of his nose to stave off a blooming headache. Beside him, Hecadoth snorted amusedly.

“Yeah, it’s completely your fault.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, get your giant nose out of my head,” Furuichi snapped, lurching to the left to avoid a projectile – a pencil, now lodged in the cinderblock wall. That had Agiel written all over it.

_At least Jabberwock’s not around_ , Furuichi thought, casting his eyes around the meeting room in which was gathered the core members of Oga’s crew and a dozen of the strongest demons in the 34th Pillar Squad.

The contractor had been surprised, a few short hours before, when Hecadoth had responded immediately and eagerly to his mental request for assistance from the squad. Furuichi had scarcely conveyed the situation when he felt a great tug behind his sternum. He had stumbled to his knees, gasping at the sensation – not pain, exactly, but a deep discomfort of being overwhelmed, leaving his mind fuzzy and his fingers trembling.

And then the dimensions had promptly split open and from the gaping rift poured the legions of Hell.

“Yo, Furuichi!” Agiel had grinned. “You look good on your knees."

And now, having finally corralled the squad into some form of order and adequately explained the situation, he had to deal with the inevitable personality clashes and arguments that stemmed from introducing two groups of former enemies to one another and coercing them to work together.

_Yeah, it’s not going well_ , he thought as Hecadoth shoved a hand between his shoulder blades to knock him to the floor, out of the way of a flying desk.

“Fucking Akumano bastards, you think you can just come in here and steal our fights?!” Kanzaki roared as he trapped Xobla – _what was_ he _doing here?_ – in a stranglehold.

“The soldiers of Lord Beelzebub have been fighting Satan for longer than your grandparents have been around, cocky whelp!” Basilisk snarled back. He was apparently wielding a nameless subordinate as a weapon in favor of his massive ax at the moment, at least until a harried Kunieda darted in between the battle, evading Agiel as though her life depended on it.

_It’s not her_ life _that depends on it_ , Hecadoth commented, eyeing the way Agiel had relinquished her sword Agiel in favor of grabbing at the buttons on Kunieda’s shirt.

_Oh_ , Furuichi thought. _This was a pretty great idea after all–GRRK!_ Whipping his head around, he cast a sulky glare at Laymia, who was frowning at him in disapproval.

“Just because I don’t have unfiltered access to your mind doesn’t mean I don’t know what you’re thinking. I was under the impression there were more immediate concerns?”

Furuichi pouted, but conceded. He turned back to scan the pandemonium, watching for an opportunity to interject. And… _there_ , a pause in the yelling as Kanzaki toppled over backwards, crushed beneath Xobla, as someone flung Salamander across the room to collide with Basilisk’s face, Natsume stumbled backwards and separated Kunieda from Agiel, and Shiroyama tripped over Quetzalcoatl’s hat and crushed little Elim.

“Oi, shut up!” Furuichi bellowed in the momentary quiet, as everyone’s stumble had them temporarily silenced. When the assorted monsters all glanced in his direction, Furuichi made a sharp cutting motion with his hand and was beyond gratified when all noise and motion ceased. He cast his gaze slowly around the room, deliberately meeting the eyes of each demon and delinquent present.

“We,” he began blandly, “are not the stars of this show. We are supporting actors, and the ones we support are Oga and Beelzebub. That means handling every issue that comes their way, and only when we are overwhelmed, does our leader take the stage. So. We will work together to fight Satan and Fuji. And we’ll do our damnedest to put the fuckers down, but you can be damn well sure that even if we don’t win, _we’ll make them regret taking us on_. And Oga can have the leftovers or whatever, whenever the jackass decides to show his ugly mug. Sound good?”

He let a wicked grin creep onto his face as the room burst into hoots of agreement.

“Excellent. Now, here’s the plan…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, okay, so it’s been like three months? That’s a pretty long time, but still not quite so bad as one of my other stories, which hasn’t been updated since May… Anyway, here’s the intro to the fight with Fuji. The next chapter will be heavy on suspense and action. It’s all planned out with several scenes written, although I’ve learned by now that having it partly done is no guarantee of actually finishing it in a timely manner. All I can say is that I hope it won’t take me another three months, but I’ll apologize ahead of time if that’s the case.
> 
> Also, the epilogue to this story will consist of a variety of short, disjointed scenes meant to answer questions and tie up any loose ends. I’ve got several of them written already, but if there are any scenes you would like to see written or any questions that you don’t think will be answered by the end of the fight with Fuji, let me know and I’ll see about including them in the epilogue if I haven’t already.
> 
> Thanks for sticking with me during this long hiatus!


End file.
